


And the World Drops Dead

by gayshitiguess



Series: From the Bell Jar [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Abuse, BE SAFE KIDS, Caleb goes to some dark places here, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, F/M, Gaslighting, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Modern AU, Modern Fantasy, Multi, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Please if that shit gets to you don't read, This one gets dark, Urban Fantasy, YA BOY IS BACK, a real world way, but not really, but this is dark in like, caleb branded depression, in a way that some people's lives are dark, its fun I swear, its heavy, kind of ghost busters, like the last one was dark, start with Beware Beware, yall, yikes is the mood for this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-09-06 16:36:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 46,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16836421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayshitiguess/pseuds/gayshitiguess
Summary: Caleb Widogast has wrestled with demons his entire life. These days, they are more literal than most. He is better now than he has been for a very, very long time, but when a certain demon decides to step back into his life, it might just ruin everything that Caleb has fought to have.A follow up to Beware, Beware.





	1. Prologue: The Trick of Falling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coffee, heart-sickness, smoke, and old, bad memories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YEET THIS IS GONNA GET DARK
> 
> come and talk to me about the new story over at tumblr! Mine is gayshitiguess!! I live to answer questions. Annoy the shit out of me, ask me everything that comes to mind, I would seriously love you forever. Same thing goes for in the comments. Once again that's gayshitiguess on tumblr!!

Caleb had a stack of books clutched to his chest with one arm and the other extended, trying to balance two cups of coffee in the one hand. He had a few books to reshelve and, after that, a completely free afternoon. He turned possibilities over in his head. He could finalize the designs of that protective necklace he had in mind. Beau had ended up in hospital a few times too many for Caleb’s liking. He had been considering what to give Beau for her birthday for a few months, but he had come up empty for the longest time. Something to protect her in battle might be the way to go. 

Poor Beauregard, he thought as a bit of coffee splashed onto his hand. Yasha had been gone for two weeks by then. With no guarantee of when she would be back, Beau had begun to get forlorn and heart-sick. They had shared a  _ moment _ , as Beauregard had so eloquently put it. She wouldn’t elaborate further, but she had moaned and groaned to Caleb and Jester and really, anyone who would listen since she had left. Part of Caleb was extremely annoyed by her distraction and a part of him was sympathetic. He didn’t know how he would feel if he was away from Molly that long. 

There was a sticky note on his mug when he had poured himself coffee. In sprawling, messy handwriting; _ THERAPY!!!  _ Molly had finally convinced him to schedule a session. Just one, as he kept reminding Molly. He had no idea how he was going to explain all of his shit to someone who didn’t know that there was an entire arcane world hidden in the back alleys of their mundane one, but hey, he was smart. He would figure it out. 

He had to turn sideways and shuffle through a section of the hall that was so overcrowded with books that he could barely squeeze through. He and Jester had been working to organize the piles and piles of books scattered across their shop and home onto tall, thin bookshelves. It was quite the job, one that required moving stacks and stacks of books out of the way in order to actually put the shelves up and then reorganizing about half of the books back onto the shelves. It was messy work and the upset wasn’t welcome. Jester kept insisting that it got messier before it got cleaner, but it would definitely get cleaner. 

Deep voices rumbled through the door to the shop. A costumer. It was an uncommon occurrence, these days, but since selling books wasn’t his money maker, it wasn’t really a problem. Exorcism was an expensive service and Caleb had very little use for money. He grew up poor, so he didn’t particularly know what to do with it all. Most of it just sat in his bank account. He wondered for a moment what his mother would do with it, but he banished the memory as soon as it popped up. It left a dizzy, uncomfortable feeling in his head. He didn’t have time for that today. 

He shouldered the door open and awkwardly shuffled through, depositing the books the counter by Mollymauk. 

Molly was wearing a t-shirt that hung too large on his shoulders, dipping to expose his collar bones and half-hanging off of one shoulder. It was grey and lined with red around the arms and neckline. Caleb realized after a moment that it was his shirt. Molly had started to steal shirts and sweaters from Caleb’s closet. It was endearing, seeing Molly in too-big, too-long clothes that were  _ his,  _ like having a tag around Molly’s neck that said “ _ Caleb’s.”  _ It was endearing, of course, until there were no more shirts in his drawer and he had to raid Molly’s crop tops out of revenge. His pants were black and torn and so tight they might as well have been painted on. He was perched on the stool that sat behind the counter, one foot planted firmly on the ground, the other braced against the stool. His hair was just beginning to get long on the sides and the front, just kissing his shoulders. His undercut was visible through the loose curls that had escaped his messy bun. Caleb could see the tip of the triangle that surrounded the all-seeing eye on his back. The muscles were tense under the line art, dark skin rippling to accommodate the tension. Caleb followed the lines of the snake around Molly’s arm underneath the counter, wrapping around the hilt of his sword. Black smoke began to curl around Molly, tangling through his hair, caressing his skin. 

And then Caleb looked past Molly. Sharp, blue eyes. White collar. Jaundiced skin. Gold pendant hanging around his neck. The familiar red stone set inside.

“Good afternoon, Bren,” Ikathon said, “Let’s begin.” 

The cups in his hands tumbled to the ground and shattered, splattering coffee on his shoes. Molly jerked at the sound, tried to turn around to get to him, but was trapped by the smoke, like Caleb used to be. Like Caleb was. 

And then he was burning, burning, breaking at his chest, falling somewhere inside of himself. Somewhere he hadn’t been in so long. Somewhere he knew so very well. 

___

_ Bren was seven and he was sitting in the inner chambers of Father Ikathon. He was familiar with his surroundings, the stiff, red chair he sat on, the almost-bare bookshelves, the large, heartwood desk in the center of the large room. It was the seventh time that he had found himself there without his mother, the tenth time total. He could feel anxiety like acid swirling around and splashing in his gut. He wished to be back in his bed, to be wrapped up warmly by the radiator in their first-floor apartment, hidden away from all of this on the poor side of Berlin. He wished to have Frumpkin purring on his chest, pawing gently at his face when she wanted attention. He wished for his father to come rushing into the office, bold and broad and Bren’s hero to save him.  _

_ And then he thought that he didn’t need saving.  _

_ Sure, it hurt, but what Father Ikathon was doing was necessary. If enduring this was God’s test on his soul, then Bren would endure. He was scared of hurting, but he was more scared of Hell.  _

_ He heard footsteps approaching the room. He held his breathe and counted the time between them. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. The doorknob jiggled, metal scraping against metal. Bren was not going to cry. He was not going to cry. He knew that it would be so much worse if he cried.  _

_ Father Ikathon looked thirteen feet tall standing over him. He removed his jacket and hung it on the coat rack. He looked thin and sickly. Like a skeleton wearing a paper-thin skin suit.  _

_ “Good afternoon, Bren.” His voice sounded like metal sawing through bone. “Let’s begin.” He rolled up his shirt sleeves. Bren gripped the edges of his chair, his fingers white-knuckled. Black smoke billowed from the folds of Ikathon’s skin. Bren’s heart seized in his chest.  _

_ “What do you say, Bren?” Ikathon said. Bren swallowed down the bile in his throat. He felt a hot tear roll down his face but did nothing to wipe it away. Something sharp and hot and terrible tore into his chest. His breath escaped him in words.  _

_ “Thank you.”  _


	2. The Climb Within

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pixie dust, non-romantic scars, aches and pains, moving, and weeping willows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ya boi is back! I really like this chapter y'all. Getting to describe Molly in detail is soooo fun! I never got to get into him in Beware and I have a very specific vision of him in my brain. I might have to draw him at some point. You guys can go and check out my tumblr gayshitiguess to see why I chose the titles for the stories so far and ask questions about this series or any of my stories! I seriously love it when someone drops me an ask its soooo much fun!! Thanks for reading!!

Caleb didn’t know how long it had been when he finally came back to himself, but when he did, Molly was in front of him. Mollymauk, all wide, bright eyes, and too sharp teeth. Those eyes were blown wide, popping out of his head, so bright brown that they could be red, like sunlight shining through steeped, black tea. There was makeup on his eyelids, black just dusted there, mixing with glitter and coal that lined his water line, making his eyes that much more severe. Molly’s mouth was moving, round, soft lips that so often cooed and spat and slunk out careless and wonderful words, were pulled thin. His words looked desperate. 

Molly’s skin was so beautiful. Caleb’s thoughts were focusing in on him. He was scared to think of anything else, lest he fall back into himself. It was a dangerous place for him to be, somewhere between  _ there  _ and here. He could tumble either way. So, he thought that Molly’s skin was so beautiful. It was dark and soft and freckled in a few places. Molly used lotions and oils and made himself shine. Caleb loved watching him apply face masks and scented things that smelled like sugar. His nose was hooked and long, resembling the beak of a bird. His face was long, skinny, and profound. A scar snaked up from his collarbone and just kissed his jawline, not one that he induced himself, those were skinny and light almost pretty, dancing soft brown against his skin. This one was ugly and curved. It wasn’t a romantic scar. It wasn’t something that Caleb could kiss and worship and love. It was an awful thing with an awful story that Molly wouldn’t tell him. Peacock feathers met his cheekbone, sunshine leaked from his shoulder. Molly was a thing of art. He was something created, something that he spent time making. He was something carefully put together every morning and he was messy and he was mean and he was beautiful. 

Caleb thought about that, and he breathed and tried to pull himself that much closer. His forehead met Molly’s shoulder. He breathed out against his chest. There was a bruise hiding underneath his shirt. It was red and purple, jagged and thin, like the bruises that Molly’s ropes left behind. Caleb would usually revel in those bruises, but seeing that and knowing who did it, knowing that he had those bruises too, it made his blood boil.

Caleb had a strange relationship with anger. It literally burned him. When he felt righteous anger, he burned whatever was in his way. That feeling was powerful and exhilarating and it tossed him back to that cold evening in Berlin. They’d just bought a house. Caleb had tried to help them, to give them money, but they wouldn’t take it. They were proud people. They’d just bought the house and it was a tiny, rocking thing that barely stood. And that anger had run through him when he had lifted his hand against them. 

It was snowing. 

It melted off of his skin, sizzling like eggs in a frying pan. 

Caleb breathed in Molly’s smell, lavender, and vanilla. White sage, sweat, weed. That scent of electricity that magic gave off. It grounded him, brought him back, made him sit in his body and stay there. He was sitting on the floor of his shop, behind the counter, his long legs folded beneath him and tangled with Molly’s. He was cold, he found. His body was sore and aching and tired. There was a screaming whine coming from somewhere behind him. 

“Caleb?” Molly’s voice sounded grieving. “Are you with me, baby?” He tried to keep his voice low, but he couldn’t hide the panic inside. Caleb’s heart ached. 

“You’re bruised...” It was all that Caleb could think to say. Molly’s brow scrunched up like the thought hadn’t occurred to him. 

“Baby, I lost you there for a minute,” Molly sounded so close to crying, “I didn’t know where you’d gone. That wasn’t...” Molly looked down like he was trying to decide whether or not to discuss this, “that wasn’t like any other time you...” his voice cut out. 

Caleb wanted so desperately to comfort him, but he had nothing to give. He was wrung out, a wet towel so twisted that he was dry. Molly wrapped him up in his arms and took deep, soothing breathes. Footsteps came clanking down the hallway to the back, out of order and many. Caleb held his breath and tried to count the time between them. They couldn’t seem to pick a beat. 

“ _ Caleb!”  _ Nott’s scream was enough to set Caleb’s nerves back on edge. He flinched instinctively, hiding in Molly a bit more. He could almost feel Nott soften behind him, place a hand on his back, rub gentle circles on the small of it with her thumb. 

“What happened?” Fjord’s voice, full of confusion. Nobody answered. He heard Nott open her mouth to, but she hesitated. Molly’s hummed softly. Caleb latched on to the vibrations in his trim chest. 

“ _ Oh _ ,” Caduceus’ voice, full of understanding. He always understood. Maybe that was part of the reason that Caleb had to leave, because Caduceus could always, always see through him. He couldn’t hide like he needed to. He could feel the soft glow of Caduceus’ magic somewhere a bit removed, the warmth of it just brushing his skin. A big, soft hand found his head, gently stroking his hair. Pink filled his vision, blotted away the pain in his lungs and the dizziness in his brain. Caleb’s voice was hiding somewhere inside of his stomach. He worked on forcing it back up. 

“Molly, what the fuck happened?” Fjord still didn’t get it, and his voice moved across the shop as he went to lock the door. Caleb heard the deadlock slide in with a too-loud snap. Nott’s hand was still on his back, making his skin tingle and prick and Caduceus was still touching his hair and Molly, Molly, Molly, was still wrapped around him, still holding on to him like he was going to try and escape, his scent and his voice and his skin and it was all too much, too much, too much. 

Caleb wretched himself away from all of them perhaps a bit too quickly, a bit too harshly. Molly made a sound as Caleb’s fingers left his. Caleb made his way to his feet, his legs wobbly and unsteady. Nott caught his knee in her hand and kept it from buckling. Caleb braced himself against the counter and tried to catch his breath. He’d just stared down Death Himself and for some reason or another, he was left alive. He was alive and so was Molly and he was still stuck inside of himself just a bit. He was still climbing up his own ribcage, finding footholds in his lung tissue, trying to make it back to the world around him. He let his weight lean against the counter and kept climbing. 

Nobody touched him. Nobody said anything. Everything was still and quiet and he was starting to feel more real. He popped his fingers one by one and stood upright. His hands were cold so he rubbed them together. His magic bubbled to the surface of his skin and he let it. His magic wasn’t something that he controlled, exactly. The best way that he’d found to describe it was as a completely separate thing from himself. It was a ball of energy that lived in his chest. It burned in his rib cage and spread across his muscles. It pooled beneath his skin when someone touched him, it offered itself to be used when it thought that he was in danger, and sometimes, when it thought that he might get very hurt or die, it would take over and explode out of him. It was somewhat of a friend, a companion that was always with him. He knew other people with similar abilities who revealed in their magic, who used it every chance they got, who let it surround them and fill in the cracks in their skin. Caleb couldn’t do that. His magic was jumpy and loyal and smart, but it was also broken. It leaked, it throbbed, it poisoned him and leached off of him. 

He let it swell in his fingers, make his skin luminescent. The dull, aching throb in his chest that accompanied his magic pulsed with his heart. It grounded him, that feeling, that burn in his chest. It made him feel like he was a person, like he was connected with himself again, like Peter Pan’s shadow, sewed back to his feet. 

“Caleb?” Nott’s voice was gentle, barely breaking through the silence that had filled the shop. Caleb moved then, pushed off of the counter, and stepped over Molly. He wobbled a bit for just a moment, but he got his feet underneath him. He collected his magic in his hands, like lava pooling against his skin. Fjord stepped back, let him to the door. Caleb took in a breathe. He breathed out magic. It spread across the air, lighting it on fire, burning the empty space gold. Gold, gold, gold, that’s what Caleb was, filling up with the glittery stuff. It burned him and bled him and he felt so much more like himself. 

_ Burn it away,  _ he told himself.  _ Burn it all away.  _

He let his magic go, let the gold dissipate in the air like pixie dust. The thought of being Tinker Bell entertained his mind for a moment. 

Fjord’s hand clapped on to his shoulder, as gentle as he could, jarring still. Caleb swayed a bit with it, but he kept his balance. 

“It’s been a while since we moved last.” Fjord didn’t bother with the fake accent, not speaking this quietly. Soft British tones decorated his voice and made it that much more attractive to the ears. Caleb sometimes wondered what would have happened to the two of them if Molly and Jester hadn’t come into their lives. Of course, Fjord and Jester weren’t anywhere near official yet, but Caduceus had reported a  _ something  _ between them. Caleb was horrible at spotting those kinds of things, but Caduceus was quite the gossip over their evening tea. He had mentioned Fjord and Jester’s flirting several times now, and Caleb was beginning to get invested in their relationship. Of course, Molly had expressed to him on multiple occasions his blatant attraction to everyone in the house, excluding Nott, who had made it clear to all of them that she was a lady and would not have any of that business. Caleb supposed that anything was possible when his boyfriend was named Mollymauk. 

Boyfriend. That wasn’t something he’d thought before. Maybe boyfriend. Perhaps boyfriend. 

“Everyone out,” Caleb said. “We need to move now.” Fjord nodded and opened the door for Caduceus. Nott scampered past him and Caleb shot out a bolt of magic after her, making her hard to look at directly. Molly walked up to him, extended his hand as though to take Caleb’s, and then hesitated. 

“Can I?” He asked. Caleb nodded and Molly caught his face in his hands. He kissed Caleb. He kissed his cheeks and his forehead and the tip of his nose. “I don’t know what’s happening, but it's going to be okay.” Everything about him sounded so genuine. Caleb believed him completely. “I’ll go get the girls.” 

Caleb had moved the shop twice before. It had originally lived in England, where he had met Nott, and where he had escaped  _ them  _ to. When they had gotten into hot water with the law and spent a night in jail, they’d broken out and he’d moved Modern Literature to Canada, where they had spent three months before they picked up Fjord and moved to escape his demons, both figurative and literal. They had landed in LA, where they’d found Caduceus and, eventually, Molly, Beau, Yasha, and Jester. With everyone on the sidewalk of South Spring Street, Caleb rubbed his hands together again and began to blow hot air into them. He closed his eyes. 

“Hickory Pickery, Hickory Pickery,” Caleb whispered, “where shall this witch go?” The ground beneath him began to shake. Cracks formed in the sidewalk, gold leaking through. “Hickory Pickery,” he said, the wind began to pick up. Molly’s hand wrapped around his forearm. “Hickory Pickery,” Caleb opened his eyes. 

Thousands of locations flashed before his eyes, places that were safe for him to drop down in, somewhere where they wouldn’t be seen by any non-magical beings. Thousands of cities, empty lots, crumbling buildings, deserts, a too-large, abandoned casino in Los Vagas. He blinked through each of them before he saw what he wanted to see. Oh yes, that would do nicely. 

“Hickery Pickery, Po.” Caleb finished the rhyme, blew out a lung full of air, and bent to pound his hands on the earth. Once, twice, his palms scrapped against the sidewalk. The air blew up around them, and in the next moment, they were in a different place all together. 

Trees, tall, dark evergreens hung above their heads. Caleb’s hands, scrapped and skinned on the sidewalk were in pine straw, poking at the wounds with sharp, stabbing pain. The ache in his chest was not so much familiar, much more terribly, awfully painful. He refused to stay on the forest floor, though. He had to make sure that he was where he needed to be. With great effort, Caleb dragged himself to his feet, his knees feeling wobbly the whole way. His chest ached and his head pounded, but he was able to squint his eyes and focus his blurry vision enough to see the familiar door of Modern Literature, the wooden sign promising rare and limited edition books, embedded in the body of a great weeping willow. The seven of them were surrounded by the tree’s branches, the gentle waterfall of its leaves hiding the oddity quite well. Yes, that would do indeed. 

“Everybody inside,” Caleb said, “let’s make sure that none of the dimensions got left behind.” Caleb had done his best to describe what exactly his shop was to the others, but he always found that describing what to him was second nature extremely difficult. He was able to form those pockets inside of each other since he was a teenager, and it was easy for him to snap his fingers and make it so. It hurt quite a bit, but that was alright. The best way that he had found to describe it to them was in bubbles. Each layer of the shop was a bubble, and inside of that bubble was another bubble, and another, and another, so on and so forth. He had even drawn out a diagram for them. It was attached to the fridge with one of the donut magnets that Jeser had brought. 

Everybody trickled in and as Caleb went to take a step, his leg crumpled beneath him as the pain in his chest sharpened and threatened to knock him out. He bit back a cry, but he couldn’t stop his fall at that point. Luckily, Molly caught him before the ground did. It wasn’t graceful and Molly couldn’t quite support his weight, but having something other than the ground to crash into saved Caleb from further injury. 

“Whoa, whoa, babe,” Molly cooed, “what have we said about using too much magic?” 

“I apologize.” Caleb righted himself against Molly, letting himself revel in Molly’s presence once again. He was so warm, Caleb noted. Molly was always so warm. “It was necessary.” 

“Okay, you’re freezing, and I think you could do with a three-day nap.” Molly’s voice jumped around his ribcage and Caleb clung to the vibrations against his cheek. “Let’s get you in bed.” 

And for as much as Caleb had to plan, secure, explain, and prepare for, he couldn’t find it in himself to argue. For all of the outcomes that Caleb had to plan, for all of the escape routes he had to make, and for all of the people he had to protect from his own past, Caleb couldn’t find it in himself to do anything but lean into Molly as he was led through the shop and back to his room. He couldn’t find it in himself to fight as he was deposited on his bed and his many layers were discarded for him. 

  
  


His mind was alight with everything that could go wrong while he slept, all the ways that he could find himself trapped or dead, but even so. He couldn’t find it in himself to do anything but curl into Mollymauk’s chest and hope that, by morning, the pains in his body would be gone and everything would be okay. 

Unlikely, but the heat of Molly in bed next to him, the smell of lavender and sugar and weed, the feeling of smooth, scarred skin made him almost believe that it could happen. Almost. 


	3. The Elephant in the Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piano Man, charcoal fingers, Frumpkin, Boring, Nips, dancing, and distance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all, a quick warning; this chapter contains a few things to look out for. Firstly, there are some mentions of trauma and past abuse and self-hatred in the first half of it, which I'm sure will be continued through the rest of the piece. There's also discussion of dissociation and non-verbal behavior. In the end, there's a pretty detailed flashback that kind of blurs the lines of what's real and what's not for Caleb. There's also some internalized homophobia. If any of that is a bad thing for you, I would read with caution. 
> 
> Also!! Update! And it's technically Tuesday, even if it's 1 in the morning where I am so yay! I apologize if I'm not around until this weekend, it's finals week and I have several papers to write. Please bear with me. This has been a stress relief to write, but until I get all my coursework done, I might not have time. I'll definitely have something posted by next Tuesday, though. Thank you guys for being patient! I'm going to go to bed so that I might be somewhat of a functioning human in the morning. Thanks for reading! As always, you can find me on tumblr at gayshitiguess! Come by and send me stuff to distract from finals!! I love questinos about this au or just Crit Role in general! Thanks!

When Caleb woke up, the other side of the bed was empty and Molly was getting dressed. He knew because Molly sang very loudly to whatever song was in his head when he was picking out his outfit. Caleb adored Molly, but he was not as endlessly skilled as he often liked to give on. He lived with a circus for the first two years of his conscious life, and he used that as an explanation for his many imaginary talents. He claimed that he was a skilled acrobat (Caleb had seen him try to do a flip and break his nose in the landing), that he could swallow swords (when Nott had asked, he had replied, “I mean, how hard can it be?”), and that he could guess someone’s age just by looking at them (he had guessed Fjord’s age off by ten years and had said “close enough.”). Molly had also told Caleb that he was an excellent singer, but upon listening to him, Caleb was begrudged to admit that he wasn’t very good. He could hold a tune, but his range included a grand total of three notes. Anything higher was too sharp and anything lower was too flat. Still, listening to him sing  _ Piano Man  _ from the warmth of his bed was beautiful. 

Molly hadn’t officially moved into Caleb’s room yet. It was something that they’d talked about but found reasons to postpone every time. Caleb loved Molly’s company but he was also a solitary person. He was often exhausted when he spent a long time around other people. The best thing for him then was a bit of time alone. Molly called it recharging. All Caleb had to do was ask, and Molly would find someone or something else to occupy his time. Molly never made him feel bad about something like that. Caleb had his fair share of what he referred to as particularities, things he did a certain way and wasn’t interested in changing. Molly stopped challenging them after the third one. Following Caleb into the shower had started an angry reaction that Caleb couldn’t find it in himself to explain and two days treating each other as relative strangers. Molly had told Caleb that he could share his trauma and Caleb had been clear that he didn’t want to. What he’d told Molly already was too much and so very little. He didn’t know what Molly would think of him if he knew what had happened. He didn’t know what Molly would think of him if he knew that had been done to him. 

He didn’t know what Molly would think of him if he knew that he deserved it. 

It was a conversation that Caleb wasn’t looking forward to, the one that would follow Molly’s realization that he deserved much better than Caleb could possibly give. It wasn’t the nicest thought first thing in the morning, but Caleb couldn’t seem to stop it. He was far too damaged to love someone as Molly deserved. He was far too damaged to be loved by someone like Molly. 

A weight plopped down on the bed, jostling him from his thoughts.

“I know you’re awake,” Molly’s voice was full of joking, “I can hear you thinking.” Caleb opened his eyes to Mollymauk, makeup half done and smiling. Caleb didn’t say anything. The great weight of guilt and grief in his chest lessened just a little at the way that Molly’s fingers ghosted across his cheek. “How are you feeling?” Caleb hummed in his chest and turned, folding Molly up in his arms. Molly was wearing his own clothes this morning, A t-shirt advertising a band that Caleb didn’t recognize, the sleeves cut off roughly, most likely with a pair of kitchen scissors. 

Caleb would have been contented to stay where he was for the rest of the day. He would have been happy to stay there, curled up with Molly, not tired enough to fall back asleep, but without the will to get up. He could have stayed right there had Beau not burst into his room. 

“It’s three in the afternoon and we’re out of food, assholes,” she yelled louder than strictly necessary, “we’re going to find out where Caleb dropped us off and find a fucking McDonalds!” 

“You could have just knocked, Unpleasant One,” Molly countered. “I mean, I do love a flair for the dramatic, but come on.” Beau seemed to deflate a bit, something she was habit to when she was suddenly embarrassed. She inhaled and doubled down. 

“Well, fuck you, we’re going to get some food!” She made her way to the doorway. Molly laughed and ran his fingers through Caleb’s hair. 

An idea was forming in Caleb’s head, and it wasn’t difficult to stir him from bed once it was fully formed. It was something that he was meaning to do, but the advantages of his current position were plentiful. Even so, with yesterday’s events, Caleb knew that he needed something. 

He dressed quickly and retrieved a book from his shelf along with a hand full of incense. Dragon’s blood, a gift from Fjord for his last birthday. Caleb burned a stick of it, dug out the light like a cigarette, and drew a small circle on the ground with the burned end. The page he was looking for was well worn and dog-eared. He had referred to it too many times to count. While not in the last few months, it was something that he found great comfort in returning to. 

“Are you sure you’re up for magic this morning?” Molly’s voice called from his bathroom. Caleb didn’t answer. He didn’t seem to have much of a voice this morning. Not surprising, after particularly... nasty run-ins with his past, Caleb could find himself non-verbal for days. He had once gone a week without speaking after a nightmare. Caleb wasn’t sure how many cups of tea Clay had given him to coax him back to himself fully, but the one that did it was vanilla. Even so, he forced Latin out of his stomach for this. 

The words left his tongue like it was led, but he had a clear image of what he wanted in his head. Caleb covered his fingers with charcoal, spreading the black stuff over them and rubbing them across the ground in patterns he knew by heart. He snapped his fingers, lighting the rest of the incense on fire in a bundle. The smell of dragon’s blood spread through the room, rich of cherry and wood. Once his patterns were complete, Caleb closed his eyes and let them hover over the circle for a moment. He could see a flash of light from behind his eyelids. And then, a soft meow. And then, fur, rubbing up against his arm. A rough tongue lapping at his charcoal fingers. Caleb scratched behind ears and savored the deep, harmonious purring. 

Caleb pulled Frumpkin to his chest and held him there for a long time. He whispered in German to the cat, soft words of praise and lament. They had spent too much time apart. Too much time indeed. 

“Woah!” Molly emerged from the bathroom. “Who is this?” His voice was full of wonder. 

“Frumpkin.” Was all that Caleb could find to say. 

“Well, Frumpkin can join us for breakfast, yeah?” Molly reached down to pat Frumpkin on the head. The hair on Frumpkin’s back stood up and he hissed slightly at Molly’s hand. Caleb patted him on the nose and told him to be nice. 

Everyone was waiting for them in the front of the shop, all in various degrees of appropriate dress. If Caleb was right about where they’d ended up, Beau was going to be very cold in her choice of sports bra, unzipped windbreaker, and flip-flops. As he and Molly emerged, Fjord let out a sneeze. 

“Oh, yay, Frumpkin’s back,” Fjord knew how much of a comfort that Frumpkin was to Caleb, and still he made sure to complain at any interaction between them. Caleb thought that it must be because Frumpkin didn’t like him. Fjord had a habit of being stuck inside of himself, very focused on  _ his  _ goals and  _ his  _ needs, and often overlooking the value and strengths that lied in others. He talked to Nott like she was a child and to Molly like he was a floozy when Nott was far more intelligent than any of them and Molly was far more committed than Fjord had a chance to be. Caleb couldn’t judge him for it, though, at least not fundamentally. Caleb was exactly the same way. He had a difficult time seeing the worth in things that he deemed as simple. Like a cat, for example. 

Nott and Clay knew what Frumpkin hanging around Caleb’s neck and pawing experimentally at his long hair meant. Caleb saw them stiffen, look to each other, and then turn back to him, caught somewhere between alarm and concern. 

“Dude, you have a cat?” Beau said. She reached out a single finger to Frumpkin and let him sniff her it. When he pressed his nose against it, she petted up his face and behind his ear. Frumpkin purred happily. Caleb had thought that surely he would like Molly better than Beauregard, but then again, Frumpkin always had a way of surprising him. 

“It’s good to see you again, Frumpkin,” Caduceus called in greeting. “You’re taking care of him, then?” Frumpkin made a small sound in response that Caduceus seemed to understand. Molly smiled at him with some suspicion and curiosity. 

“What a weird name,” Jester said. Frumpkin dodged her pet and perched on Caleb’s opposite shoulder. 

“You’ve hurt his feelings,” Caleb said. Frumpkin made it easier, talking, interacting, being a person. Molly’s hand was on the small of his back and Frumpkin was warm on his neck and Caleb felt so much more human than he had a few hours ago. 

Jester seemed horrified at the accusation. Her eyes were wide and wet when she apologized. 

The woods smelled of dirt and Christmas trees and there was no path in sight. Fjord was sitting on his heels, studying the ground in some vain attempt to follow an imaginary trail. Caduceus was busying himself talking to the trees and Beau was watching him, back to the trunk of an oak, confused smile on her face. Caleb supposed that they hadn’t quite gotten used to Caducues’ many eccentricities, even after a year and a half of knowing him. Caleb wasn’t even sure if  _ he  _ was used to Caduceus after five. Molly had his cell phone pressed between his shoulder and his ear, talking quietly to who Caleb assumed was Yasha while he hung from a low branch on one of the trees. Nott was nowhere in sight, but Jester was talking excitingly to her, so Caleb assumed that she had stuck around. Nott had formed something of a soft spot for Jester. The two had become fast and unlikely friends in their time together. Caleb was actually relieved. He had been so worried that they would react poorly to Nott, cast her out like so many people had. Caleb had assured her that as soon as anyone said something she didn’t like, they would be out of his house, but that didn’t make her feel any better. It was their approval that she craved and believed that she didn’t deserve, not their expulsion. 

He got tired of waiting. Caleb pulled Frumpkin from his perch on his shoulder and set him on the ground. Frumpkin rubbed up on his legs for a moment. 

“Go and find a road.” Caleb scratched against his ears and called for Beau. “I’m going to look through Frumpkin for a while, I won’t be able to see or hear anything that’s going on here, but I will be able to talk to you. Just tap me on the arm a few times if you need me.” Beau looked confused but didn’t shrug off his hand when he rested it on her shoulder. 

Frumpkin was only a few yards off, and as he looked back, Caleb was caught by the uncomfortable feeling of seeing his body without a mirror. Frumpkin turned his attention back to the forest ahead of him, trotting quietly through the underbrush. He almost got distracted by a lizard moving lazily through the December cold, but Caleb reminded him of his task. 

“We can follow him.” Caleb wasn’t sure exactly how loud he was being, but Beau gave his arm a squeeze and her shoulder disappeared. For a moment, Caleb was lost, only grounded through Frumpkin’s eyes, but then he felt Beau’s hand in his, calloused fingers wrapping around his and another hand gripping his bicep, ready to catch him if he were to fall. Caleb could almost hear Beau’s voice, too quiet for anyone else to hear, telling him that she had him. 

Caleb wasn’t exactly sure when Beauregard had become his best friend. It was something that had snuck up on him. He was very careful about who he lent his heart to. Nott, Caduceus, and Fjord earned his trust over time. They were his family and Molly was his... well, his  _ Molly.  _ The jury had still been out on Yasha, Jester, and Beau for the longest time, but somehow, Beau had snuck her way into his life more intimately than the other two. Caleb was sure that, given time, he would feel closer to them, but for the moment, they were at arm's length. 

Frumpkin was trotting along happily through the woods, happy to be back in paws. His stint as a sparrow watching over the graveyards of LA for any sign of lich activity was necessary but tedious. Caleb knew that Frumpkin liked being anything other than a cat as much as Caleb did. This was the form that Frumpkin had come to Caleb in when he first called him from the Feywilde. It was the form that both of them preferred. And yet, Caleb understood the tactical necessity of other forms. Why have a loyal friend in a being that can change form into anything that Caleb can imagine and not use that to his advantage? 

Frumpkin’s ears perked up to the sound of rubber displacing rocks and gravel on concrete. He turned to his left and followed the sound. It was occasional, no car horns, no yells, no police sirens. A small town, then. Caleb missed small towns. They lived in one in Canada, the smallest little cluster of frozen buildings. It was peaceful in a way that Berlin and Liverpool and LA couldn’t be. It didn’t stink of people and poison and piss. It was wonderful. 

He wasn’t crazy about the backward thinking that sometimes accompanied them, but hey, he could compromise. A perk of liking both men and women, he supposed. 

Frumpkin’s paw hit road, Caleb snapped his fingers, and he was back on his shoulder, rubbing into Caleb’s clothes. 

“ _ Guter Junge,”  _ Caleb cooed, rubbing Frumpkin’s ear between his fingers, “ _ aber bleib weg von den Straßen, wenn du sie findest.”  _

“Holy shit, your cat is a ghost.” Beau retreated from his protective position so quickly she almost ran into Fjord. 

“He’s of the Fey,” Caduceus corrected, his eyes glowing a bit as he talked about it, “Home makes things like Frumpkin very powerful. And just so handsome.” Frumpkin mewed at Caduceus softly until he petted him. Caduceus found almost as much comfort in Frumpkin as Caleb did. He made him endlessly homesick, but Caleb knew that having something else barring his magic and his home made the universe feel a little lighter. 

The road was a twenty-minute walk from their tree. Caleb marked the way in his mind, noting landmarks even though he knew that he would remember it. His boot hit the road and he let out a sigh. The blue and yellow sign staked into the side of the road read; “ _ Welcome to Boring Oregon, the most exciting place to be!”  _ He was so glad that he had landed where he thought he had. It was hard to tell sometimes, especially when he was in that kind of headspace. Moving took it out of him, and he was sometimes less precise than he would like to be. He’d hit the mark this time, though. 

“Boring, Oregon?” Nott had her hand on Caleb’s Calf, hiding somewhere in the folds of his coat. 

“Don’t let the name trick you,” Caleb said. 

Boring, much to Beauregard’s dismay, did not have a Mcdonald’s. Boring did, however, have a twenty-four-hour diner that was abandoned at five in the afternoon. The Evening Nip, it was called. Caleb stepped up to the door first, running his hand along the metal frame of it. There, just hidden beside the handle was a messily scratched sigil. Caleb smiled and let his fingers glow where it was. He bent down, pressing his lips against the metal. He heard Beau scoff at the action and whine something about germs. 

“While I have no coin, I offer many gifts.” There was a moment of hesitation before the sigil glowed back, warmth snaking up Caleb’s fingers. As he opened the door, a golden sheen spread across the entryway, revealing a cozy, red and white themed dinner. There was a man standing beside the door, a small podium in front of him. Careful, purple eyes tracked over Caleb. 

“Mr. Widogast, we’ve been expecting you.” He said. He collected menus in his hands. 

“I have five guests.” Caleb responded, knowing that the man wouldn’t care for pleasantries, “one is undead, one is ghoulish, and one is demon-touched. I take charge of their actions and bare the consequences of their actions.” The man offered his hand, a purple circle swirling in his palm. Caleb called a golden one to match and clapped his hand into the man’s, their skin sizzling with the promise. The man motioned for them to all move forward, eyes trailing over Jester for a moment before turning back to Caduceus. 

“Hey there,” Caddy said, waving sweetly, “I’m Clay, no guests.” The man nodded and moved in front of the group, leading them to a large, round booth in the back corner of the diner. With the rest of the place empty, it didn’t matter much, but Caleb appreciated the consideration. 

“And what do you need that I can provide?” Caleb asked the man as his friends took their seats. 

“The blood of a dammed man.” He replied, a small smile playing on his lips. Caleb nodded and rooted around in the pockets of his coat for a moment before he came upon an empty vile. He closed his eyes and concentrated, filling the thing up. It was warm in his hand when he handed it to the man. With a nod, he took the vile and vanished from sight. 

“I have so many questions,” Beau said as he sat down, “mostly ‘what the fuck,’ but I can skip that if it’ll make this go faster.” 

“Magic is hidden everywhere, Beauregard,” Caleb said, “you just have to know where to look. This is a mirror of the mundane world, but tucked away, hidden from view.” 

“A buddle, like the shop?” Jester asked. 

“Yes,” Caleb responded. “I suppose there are other questions that should be answered.” 

“Yeah, that’s an understatement,” Beau said. “I mean, twelve hours ago, we were in LA and now where in bum fuck nowhere Oregon? What the fuck?” 

“I know it was sudden,” Caleb played with the paper napkin under his silverware, “but it was necessary. There was a considerable threat who had found the shop and it was essential to remove all of you from harm's way.” Beau nodded, seeming to respect the answer. 

“Should we warn Yasha?” Molly asked. “I mean, if its a threat to us, then she should keep an eye out.” 

“It wouldn’t hurt,” Caleb said, “but it won’t help. He wants me, not any of you. You are all simply in the way.” Caleb’s stomach flipped as the words left his tongue. This was going to be difficult to talk about without vomiting, Caleb realized. He wished that he had done this somewhere more private, suddenly. 

“Well, then what’s this big threat?” Fjord asked. “I know you’ve got demons same as me, but you’ve never mentioned them coming back to bite you.” Caleb had chosen to keep Fjord somewhat in the dark about his past. Caduceus knew a bit, Molly a little more, and Nott almost all of it, but there were some things that he couldn’t bear to say out loud. He trusted Fjord explicitly, he just couldn’t find it in himself to trust him with  _ this.  _ It looked like he would have to, though. He would have to trust all of them with this. 

They didn’t deserve this, he realized. They didn’t deserve to have to sift through his mess, to survive his past. 

“A man named Ikathon,” the name burned through his throat. Molly’s hand found his. “He was...” Caleb could feel himself retreating again, moving back in order to try and protect himself. He pushed forward anyway. “He was a mentor. He was a bad man, though. When I realized, I ran, and I have been running from him since. I do not intend to let him hurt any of you and I do not intend to end up trapped by him again.” His voice broke and cut off as he spoke and he swallowed thickly. Molly took the signal to pick up for him. 

“He came into the shop yesterday.” Molly’s eye never left Caleb. He could feel those bright browns burning into him. “He asked for Caleb. I told him he wasn’t there, but he insisted and then attacked me with magic. Caleb, as always had fantastic timing and came out to the front. I don’t want to assume, but I think that he had a flashback?” The last word was quirked up in a question. Caleb nodded numbly. “Ikathon told Caleb that he was in Las Vegas and that Caleb should come and see him. He let me go and left. Just like that, no fight, no threat, just an invitation.” 

“So, he’s a magic user?” Beauregard asked. “He’s like you guys?” 

“I am nothing like him.” Caleb knew that he sounded far away and lost, but he was afraid that he had sounded angry. 

“His magic is fundamentally different from Caleb’s.” Caduceus took up the explanation. “From what I understand, his is a demonic magic. There are three types in your home, angelic, earthly, and demonic. Earthly tends to be a mixture of the two, but sometimes humans are touched by angels or demons. Caleb’s is earthly. It's natural. He was born with it and always meant to have it. Ikathon stole his power. It's not natural.” Caleb silently thanked Caduceus. He didn’t think that he could talk that much at the moment. 

“So what does it mean,” Jester said, “that he’s here? What does he want?” Caleb rubbed at his eyes. 

“Me.” He said. The table was very still. “When-” he cleared his throat and tired to chose his words carefully. “I defied him, once. Something that he had trained us not to do. Something that was unthinkable. I defied him and that is how I escaped from him. It is a dark mark on his record of breaking people. I am the one who slipped away. So he wants me back. So that he can get rid of that dark mark. So that he can break me again.” Molly squeezed his hand tighter, Frumpkin nosed at his hand until he started petting him, slow, intentional strokes, more out of instinct than conscious thought. 

“Yeah, well,” Beau grumbled, “we can’t always get what we want. We’re not letting that happen.” She spoke like her very words were a rebellion. “I mean it. I’ll kick his teeth in before he touches you.” She made it sound nonchalant but Caleb could hear the fire inside of her. He was very good at listening to fire. 

Jester was studying him intently, dark eyes pouring into him. Her mouth was quirked to the side, focused on the way that he was curled inward, empty, somewhere else. She stood very suddenly and dug her hand into the pocket of Beau’s windbreaker. She emerged with two quarters and a stick of gum, walking over to the jukebox in the corner. 

A familiar, too-fast bass line leaked from the speakers. Carly Simon called him a sun of a gun. Jester danced her way back to the table and grabbed Caleb’s hand. Frumpkin jumped from his lap to the table. He wasn’t himself enough to protest, he just let Jester guide his hand to her waist, twining their fingers together. They started a messy waltz, trying to dance a three-step to a four-four song. He hummed the tune along with Carly softly. 

“ _ You’re so vain,”  _ she said. 

Jester was smiling at him, twirling him around. Caleb could feel his feet again. His face was flush. A smile had crept onto his face. Caleb hadn’t noticed that he was back inside of his own body, letting Jester spin him out and dip in with surprising strength. Molly whooped and cheered, grabbing Nott’s little hand and dragging her to the linoleum floor of the diner. There were some screeched protests, but Caleb watched as Nott found the rhythm and Molly laughed like he was going to die. Jester rushed to change the song when the other finished. The Smiths called him a charming man. 

He twirled Jester under his arm. The thrumming bass shifted, the song changed mid-beat, four-four to three-four, Caleb’s shoes were new. His hair didn’t brush the back of his neck. Short dark hair became blonde, long, curled and flying in his face. Astrid was wearing a plated plaid skirt and mary janes. Classical music played from the CD player in the empty classroom that the three of them had coopted during their free period. 

“If you don’t stop stepping on my toes, I’m going to cut them off.” Aedwulf laughed from his spot at the desk, his feet kicked up and head thrown back, but Bren couldn’t tell whether or not she was joking. 

“Sorry,” he was nervous, this close to Astrid, touching so much of her. His hand on her waist felt like sin. 

He was distracted and anxious and he missed a step, landing awkwardly on his ankle. 

“ _ Scheiße,”  _ he hissed, catching his footing again. Astrid stiffened and took a step back from him. He realized what he’d done a moment too late. Astrid’s hand clapped against his face, the emerald ring that her mother had given her turned to face inward, to catch his face. It left a scrape, cut through the soft skin of his face. 

Bren looked up at her. Astrid’s long, angular face was gone. Jester’s replaced it, round and dark and warm, brows drawn together and eyes searching. 

“Caleb?” His head throbbed, pounded with the beat of his heart. A hand rested on his back. 

“Babe,” Wulf said. Caleb could almost see his green eyes. “Are you okay?” Caleb blinked and there was Molly, close, close, very close, thumb on his cheek, tracing over the scratch in his skin. Closer than Wulf had ever been, closer than they were allowed to be. Wulf leaned forward, inspected Caleb’s face, framed it with his hands lovingly, tenderly, like he was something delicate. Like Caleb’s father framed his mother’s face, like a lover. 

Caleb shot backward, the distance growing between them, between Caleb and Molly, Bren and Wulf. The distance grew and grew and his head throbbed and throbbed and his cheek was cut, it was still cut after all of those years and none of them at all, blood just peaking to the surface. The distance grew between them like a knife. 


	4. Fleeting Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Curses, Crowns of Madness, bay leaves, pomegranates, and the capital 'C' Conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one gave me some trouble but I did it!!! A bit of a warning, there is some homophobia and some internalized homophobia in this chapter. Please be careful reading this stuff!!
> 
> Also, I'm in need of a beta. If you're good with grammar shit and want to beta this story, then shoot me a message on tumblr at gayshitiguess and we can work out the details. Perks include getting to read the story early and being clued into my super secret plans for the series! Thanks!! 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoy!

Caleb couldn’t possibly put to words the exact way that he felt, stuck between past and present, but if he had to, he would say it was as though there were two worlds living in his head. It was as though there were two different things playing in his mind, two realities intermingling and refusing to differentiate. In one part of him, he knew that Caduceus had one of Caleb’s hands, steadying him with a hand on his back, worried voice and anxious look unnatural on his features. In another, it was his father, short, salt and peppered hair, a meager suit well maintained through years of work, hands rough and scarred and familiar in his. On one side of his mind, he knew that it was Beauregard who had his other, intense, blue eyes pouring into his, words of panic and worry tumbling out her. On the other, he knew with complete certainty that it was his mother, grey just peaking into the top of her long, red hair. Brown eyes, warm, frequent smile, her voice calm as she schooled him on how to draw air into his lungs. 

His head hurt, but not like it usually did. It didn’t hurt like a migraine or an ache. It hurt like a concussion. It hurt like his head was split open. It hurt like he was going to fucking die. 

In one part of him, he recognized the warmth of Caduceus’ magic, the fuzzy, strawberry soda taste in the back of his throat. In another, his father shifted, morphed, stretching to thirteen feet tall and much too thin. That pink magic was black. It was swirling black smoke, wrapping around his limbs, crushing into his chest, tearing the air out of his lungs, tearing the lungs out of his chest, tearing the him out of his space. 

“Thank you,” he murmured, “thank you.” 

His legs disappeared from beneath him and Beau but not Beau went with him, bracing her arm around his waist and lowering him to sit on the curb. He leaned into her, chased that comfort, chased that heartbeat beneath his ear. Her hand rested on the side his head, tangled in his hair, fought not to tug on it. Caduceus was still there, still swirling pink and black and light and smoke around him, still tearing him apart and putting him back together again. 

Eodwulf kneeled in front of him. His hair was long, much longer than they were allowed to wear it. Caleb tried to push away memories but couldn’t. The showers in their hall were communal. They were the only students awake so early and up so late. They didn’t mind, at least he didn’t. They were so close, the two of them. And then they were close, close, skin and lips and water that wouldn’t get any warmer than tepid. Hands gripping at his waist, hands in his hair, hands, hands, hands. 

A hand on his knee. Wulf’s hair was too long. He was going to get in trouble.

“ _ Querido,”  _ Wulf said, “Love, please,” his voice caught in his throat. Caleb couldn’t bear to see him cry. He couldn’t bear to see that. 

And then, all at once, his mind snapped back into place. It left a whiplash in his brow, an ache that was less ache, more stab wound. Caleb dragged air into his lungs, harshly rasping oxygen against his raw throat. He realized then that he must have been screaming. His voice was weak and rough. He’d screamed himself hoarse. He was cold, he realized, leaning against Beauregard, most definitely Beauregard, no doubt in his mind, Beauregard. He wasn’t wearing his jacket and his body was weighed down. His magic was panicking, bouncing around underneath his skin, pooling where Beau had him tightly held in her arms, where Molly’s hand was resting on his knee. He tried to breathe evenly and calm it down. He hadn’t been hurt, he assured it. Molly reached up to his face. Caleb shrunk back minutely, images of Wulf being torn from him, of being kicked down to linoleum floors, of broken ribs that took years to heal flashed painfully through his head. Molly didn’t shy away, just approached slower and caught Caleb’s eyes with his to make sure that he was allowed. Caleb didn’t stop him, couldn’t, even if he wanted to. 

Molly just barely brushed his knuckles against Caleb’s cheek and then withdrew. Blood, bright red, stood out against Molly’s dark skin. 

“A curse,” Caduceus muttered. He patted Caleb affectionately on the head before his eyes flashed turquoise and he turned to survey their surroundings. A curse indeed. Caleb had used this one before, actually. Now that he knew what it felt like, he regretted evening knowing the components. A heinous thing, to turn someone to madness with their own mind. He reached a shaking hand up and found five jagged cuts on his forehead, just peaking out of his hairline. He blinked blood from his eyes. 

Molly made a sound somewhere between disapproval and panic. 

Caleb’s environment was still a bit hazy, but he could feel Beau trying to catch her breath, her heart hammering in her ribcage. He could feel a hand in his and looked down to see Nott, clutching his coat to her chest, Frumpkin perched on her shoulders. Her jaw was clenched and her eyes were big, skittering yellow things. 

“It’s okay, Caleb,” She said, rubbing her thumb against his hand. “You’re going to be fine.” For whatever reason, Caleb felt like he should be the one comforting her. He tried to draw out the name of the curse, sitting somewhere in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t find it. He knew that he was very lucky that he hadn’t attacked his friends. A lot of people did that. They saw people or things that triggered that fight or flight response in them. That response in Caleb was broken, just like everything else. When he was in danger, he froze. 

“I’m not seeing anybody,” Caduceus said, “Let’s get back home, I don’t know if we’re safe or not.” 

Beau tugged his arm over her should and supported his weight. Molly came to the other side, lovingly wrapping his arm around Caleb’s waist. 

The walk back to their weeping willow was a slow one. Caleb’s legs still weren’t totally beneath him. They felt like jelly. His knees kept buckling and he was beginning to feel lightheaded from all of the blood that he had lost. He always forgot how much head wounds bled. He stumbled over a tree root and collapsed into Molly’s chest. 

“ _ Es tut mir Leid, Teeblatt.”  _ He muttered. Molly let out a small laugh as he helped Caleb right himself. 

“Did you just call me a tea leaf?” Smile was dripping from his voice. Caleb’s heart seized. He hadn’t realized that he was speaking in German. He wasn’t supposed to do that.

“Ah- I wa-didn’t-” He stuttered over his words like he used to when he was very young. 

“Because it was really cute,” Molly assured, patting Caleb’s waist with long, slender fingers. 

“You speak German?” Caleb asked, lifting his heavy head to stare at Molly’s lips. 

“Nope.” He replied. 

With his mind too hazed to lead them properly, Caleb sent Frumpkin walking ahead, followed closely by Fjord, to lead the group. He wanted very desperately to curl up with his cat and his maybe boyfriend and sleep, but he knew that if there was a curse on him, he had work to do. It wouldn’t stop at the madness. They could track him down, they could inflict harm on him, they could slowly drain away his life force. It all depended on who cast it. 

Modern Literature was much too warm as compared to the chill outside. Caleb shrugged off his sweaters and abandoned them on his desk as Caduceus went about collecting what they would need to cleanse him of a curse. Caleb stumbled his way to the kitchen. He turned on the tap in the sink and waited for it to get hot. 

“Curse Breaking 101,” Nott said. “Let’s run it. Do you know for certain that you’ve been cursed?” 

“Yes.” Caleb dabbed at the cuts on his forehead with his handkerchief and leaned against the sink for support. 

“Do you know for certain who cursed you?” Nott gathered bay leaves and scattered them on the kitchen table. 

“No,” Caleb responded. 

“Suspicions?” She rooted in Molly’s pocket for his lighter and set it next to the leaves. 

“Yes,” Caleb said before he remembered to name them, “Trent, Astrid, Aedwulf.” The names tasted sour on his tongue. He said them quickly so that they wouldn’t linger. Caduceus entered the kitchen, a selenite necklace in his hand. He hung it around Caleb’s neck and grabbed the kitchen’s container of salt. 

“Is the curse deserved?” He asked as he picked up one of Nott’s bay leaves and checked the water. 

“Depends on perspective.” Caleb’s schooled response. He clutched the necklace in one hand and took out the container of honey with the other. 

“Are you ready?” Caduceus’ pink eyes were severe. Caleb nodded. He opened his mouth. Caduceus laid the bay leaf on his tongue. “May your blood be clean of curse.” He said, pink lights dancing around him. Caleb curled his tongue around the bay lead and lifted it up. Caduceus spooned salt under his tongue. “May your soul be safe from evil.” Caleb screwed his face up and handed Clay the honey. He put in a little too much to make up for the salt. “May your words be sweet.” Caleb closed his mouth and chewed up the salt and bay leaf. The flavors mixed together, herb and salt tainting the honey. He swallowed down the concoction with some effort and stuck his head underneath the faucet. 

The water was too hot and sent phantom fingers up his spine. It burned into his scalp and ran through his hair, tricking into the cuts on his head. The dried, sticky blood on his face began to flake off with it. 

“If cursed I truly be, wash the curse away from me.” He chanted, “If cursed I truly be, wash the curse away from me. If cursed I truly be, wash the curse away from me.” He pulled his head out of the sink and pushed his hair back out of his eyes. Jester offered a paper towel to dry his face. Nott pushed a lighter into his hand. He accepted it and clicked it three times before it caught. Collecting the remaining bay leaves, he let the tip of each catch and set them in Caduceus’s kitchen incense box. 

“We’ll scatter those ashes at midnight,” Clay muttered. Caleb nodded and tried to catch his breath. Clay busied himself making tea, obviously still rattled by the whole experience. Nott still had his hand in hers. Molly was only a few steps off, ready to catch him, hold him, whatever at a moment’s notice. Fjord came jogging into the kitchen. 

“Nobody’s in the woods. We’re clear for now.” His sword had just crawled it's way back into his skin. 

“What was all of that?” Jester asked softly after a moment of quiet. 

“Breaking the curse,” Caleb explained. “hopefully.” 

“He’s about to drink some sage tea and then take a salt bath with pomegranate,” Caduceus called from his place by the kettle. “I would see to those cuts, but I’m about tapped for the day. Are you going to be good until morning?” He ghosted his fingers across Caleb’s head. 

“ _ Ja,  _ yes,” Caleb said, his voice hoarse from screaming and salt and bay leaf, “I’ll be fine.”

“I can put some bandaids on them so they don’t bleed,” Jester offered. Caleb wasn’t sure if the noise he made was an affirmative or a dismiss, but she went to retrieve the first aid kit she kept anyway. 

With bright blue bandaids adorning his head in a crown and sage tea warming him up from the inside, Caleb felt considerably better than he had all evening. Not good, certainly not good. He could still feel the curse in his bones, making his joints stiff and swollen. Caduceus mentioned something about getting him in a river, but Caleb brushed off the severity. He assured Nott and Clay that he would be fine with a few weeks of salt baths. Clay still gave him one pomegranate too many and Nott still slipped a twenty dollar bill into his pant pocket. 

“I got you some book money.” She whispered. 

Money was no longer truly a problem for them, but it had been for the longest time. For the first few years of knowing each other, Caleb would scrounge anywhere he could to find something magical to read and Nott would steal away every bit of money that she could to buy him some. She didn’t care for paper money. She preferred quarters and buttons to anything else. 

Molly walked him to his room, carrying his coat carefully. Molly rubbed the soft leather between his fingers. 

“Are you sure you’re okay,  _ Cabeza?”  _ His voice was quiet like he knew Caleb needed right then. Anxiety swirled in his chest.  __  
  


“I ah-” he wanted to be completely honest with Molly right then. He wanted to tell him that he was very much not okay. He wanted to tell Molly that he was falling apart at the seems. He wanted to tell Molly that he had had this nightmare before and that he died in the end. “Recharge?” He said. 

Caduceus had told him time and time again that he was afraid of being vulnerable. Why was Clay always so fucking right? 

“Of course, love,” Molly said. “You went through some shit tonight, you deserve a night off.” Caleb unlocked his door and let Molly inside. Something in his torso tightened at the falsehood. “Do you need anything?” Molly laid his coat carefully out on Caleb’s bed. Caleb shook his head. Molly crossed the room and kissed his cheek gently. 

When his door closed, Caleb let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. He felt like he had been lying. He took the fore and middle fingers of his right hand and tapped them against his left wrist three times. He whispered a Hail Mary. 

With pomegranates in hand, Caleb drew a bath and sprinkled in Epsom salts. As they dissolved, he took out his father’s pocket knife and cut into one pomegranate. It bled over the bath. 

“Persephone-Kore, I invoke thee,” he muttered, “protect me from evils, cleanse me of faults.” He squeezed half of the pomegranate, seeds pouring out and sinking to the bottom of the bath. “Persephone-Kore, I invoke thee, may my fields grow, free from salts.” 

His bath looked like blood. He washed off the excess in the sink and started untying his shoes. He set them beside his wardrobe and pulled out a warm pair of sleeping pants. There was a knock at his door. 

“Hey dude, it's me,” Beauregard’s voice rang through the wood. Caleb opened the door slowly. 

“Good evening Beauregard,” he said, “can I help you?” She pushed past him without permission and sat on his bed, fiddling with the zipper on her windbreaker. He didn’t say anything, just sat across from her in his desk chair. Beau pursed her lips as though she were trying to decide how to phrase her query. 

“Okay, so I’ve been working on not being such an asshole-”

“You’re not an asshole,” Caleb interrupted.    
  


“Right,” Beau ran a hand across the shaved underside of her hair, “yeah, I just mean I’ve been trying to be nicer to people, but I don’t know how to ask this nicely, so I’m just going to ask it and I’m sorry if it's dickish.” 

“Thank you for the warning,” Caleb said. He could smell the pomegranate from his bathroom. 

“Weird shit’s been happening,” Beau started, “and I’m getting the impression that we’re all in danger. And that doesn’t sit right with me.” Caleb nodded. 

“We’ve been in this kind of danger before.” He said. She shrugged. 

“Yeah, but I knew Molly’s shit.” She fidgeted with her jacket. “I don’t know your shit.”

“You don’t want to know my shit, Beauregard.” Caleb’s voice got dark without his permission. 

“Then how the fuck-” Beau cut herself off from shouting and buried her face in her hands. “Caleb, I need you to be straight with me, here. And you can consider telling me as a favor or whatever, you can hold this over my head, but I need to know before I can get into this; why are you afraid of fire?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me on tumblr at gayshitiguess


	5. Echoes of the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Capital "C" Conversation, old friends, demon names, heartfelt hugs, and impending doom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so excited about this chapter. It's just... yes. So good. I've been sitting on one scene in here since I started Beware. I am so pumped. Also, I'm very happy to announce that the lovely Emmanem has joined me as my beta! Give them some love! Come and check me out on tumblr at gayshitiguess! I love questions! Thanks so much for reading! Enjoy!

Caleb was staring at Beau and Beau was staring at Caleb and his bath water was getting steadily colder as his stomach plummeted to his feet. That wasn’t the question he was expecting. He had expected her to want to know more about Ikathon, to ask about the details of the situation or the particulars of his magic. Beauregard was a strategic mind, no matter how thick skulled she presented herself, and she liked having a plan. Knowing how their magic worked would have been the best way to prepare. But that, that detail, was not what he had expected her to ask about.

As best as Caleb could tell, Beauregard had seen him in a state three times. The first was that first night at Caduceus’ house, fighting off the zombies in the dead of night. He’d set that old man on fire to save Mollymauk. Then again, they were ridding a house of a poltergeist and he’d had to burn it down to save the family. And finally when they encountered a werewolf that had gone completely feral. It was never pleasant, using fire, but the results were mixed. Most times, he could pull himself away from those memories, tuck his conscious into a state of autopilot and not think about it until he could afford a nice cry and panic attack. Those moments when he couldn’t control himself when he was locked away inside of his mind, were the worst of his life. Molly, Nott, and Caduceus were the only ones who knew why.

Caleb couldn’t imagine how he was going to tell this to Beauregard. He couldn’t imagine why she needed to know. Beau had never needed a reason to help someone, especially someone she knew. For all of the acting, Beauregard was a good person and she did good things because they were good. She had never asked him for his story or pushed back when he tried to avoid his past. Why would she ask then? Why did she need to know?

“I’m-” Caleb’s voice caught in his throat, “I don’t know if I want to tell you.” He answered honestly. Beau puffed out a breath.

“Dude,” she was beginning to sound irritated, “I can tell that you’re compromised,” Beau claimed that she had never been in the military, but sometimes she spoke like a soldier. “I know that whatever is happening, you’re not emotionally able to get into it. _Who_ ever is attacking you, you’re attached to them. That it's going to be hard for you to take a move against them. I need to know why.”

“Why?” Caleb asked, suddenly defiant. She was suggesting that he was too weak to handle this. True though it be, Caleb had never given her a reason to mistrust him.

“Because someone has to check your ass!” She blurted out. “If you’re going to go catatonic or worse if you go Vader on us, then someone has to know. I need to be able to snap you out of it or kick your ass depending.”

And Caleb couldn’t really argue with that logic. Nott and Molly certainly couldn’t kill him if they needed to, and Caleb doubted that Caduceus would, even though he could. Beau was perhaps the only member of their party, sans Yasha, who could prioritize and handle him if she needed to. Caleb could overpower Fjord, use Jester’s emotion-based fighting or open heart against her, but he couldn’t win a fight with Beau. He certainly couldn’t blast her until she went down because he would be on the ground before she would. Beau was made of different stuff and he couldn’t lay a finger on her. She knew that. He knew that.

For the first time, Caleb was starkly aware of the fact that he needed to tell someone his story, and the whole story at that. No editing, no skirting around the ugly parts. She needed to know everything.

_Shit._

“The man who is after me,” Caleb started, “his name is Trent Ikathon. He is a priest in the Catholic church. And he was my mentor.” Beau settled her elbows on her knees, her face in her hands, listening intently. “I grew up in Germany. A small township just inside of Berlin. My mother’s name was Una. My father’s name was Leofric. We were poor people, but we were happy, my father, my mother, and I. When I was young, though, I started presenting signs of my magic. Magic was long dead in my bloodline, but I woke it up again somehow. There were no more stories of magical people in my family’s scrapbooks. So, when I started making flames appear in my hands and walking through fire, my good, Catholic parents, took me to see the church.

“I saw our church’s priest first, but he was out of his depth and without knowledge of the occult. He called in a specialist. That specialist was Ikathon. I met him when I was seven. He put on a face for my parents, convinced them to put me under his tutelage. He is a very charismatic fellow, Trent. He is able to twist hearts in his hands. He convinced them that an exorcism was necessary and that he should conduct it without them there.

“His magic-” Caleb had been telling his story as evenly as he could. He had put himself away, cut off his emotions, but thinking about it, thinking about the black filling up his vision and tearing him apart cut into him. He had to fight to keep from crying. Beau made no move to comfort or stop him. “He used his magic to damage my mind. A branding of sorts. He laid claim to me. He told me that it was taking the demon out, and leaving behind the power, and to make up for the sin on my soul, I had to serve God. If I were to use my magic to the fullest of its ability, it had to be with his permission, with his help. He crippled me and made sure that he was my only crutch.

“I grew to care for him. I was too young to know the difference between a supporter and a manipulator. He taught me that he was a father to me. He taught me that what he was doing to me, hurting me, was good. That it was right. That it was curing me of my demons.” Beauregard flinched. “When I was of age, I was selected along with two others, Astrid and Eodwulf, to attend school in America. Trent took us with him. He was our teacher. We learned with him for three years. It was a good time. It was wonderful. He was cruel. He hurt us a lot. But we loved each other.”

“You fell in love with one of them,” Beauregard said, not asked.

“Yes.” Caleb nodded. A tear splashed against his hand. He didn’t realize that he was crying. “Or both of them. I’m not sure. I know that I loved Eodwulf but I might have loved Astrid too. It’s hard to tell when she was so like Trent. She was very good at twisting people’s hearts. She was smarter than me, Astrid. She was the first person who I met who was smarter than me.

“We worked for three years with Trent in that school. Before we graduated, we had to prove that we were loyal to the church and to Ikathon. We were to become demon hunters, the secret weapons of the church against the forces of Hell. We felt important. We were on fire. We believed in the church; in our future. Trent brought in strangers, despicable people. Servants of Hell. Demon infected. Disgusting things.”

“You killed them.” Beau’s voice dripped with disdain.

“Yes.” Caleb didn’t try to justify it. He knew that Beau wouldn’t accept that. When something was wrong, it was wrong and there was nothing that he could say to convince her of his innocence. There really wasn’t anything to convince her of. “I did. But still, that was not enough for Trent.” Caleb wiped at his eyes as his chest convulsed, trying to hide his sobbing. Beau’s hand brushed against his knee. “It was Christmas and I went home. I went home and saw my parents. I heard them talking one night. The walls were thin and I heard them talking about abandoning the church, about servicing the darker elements. I heard my parents use the Devil’s name with admiration instead of the hatred I was taught. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to. It is a memory that I now know was fabricated. I spoke to Astrid and Eodwulf. They had similar experiences, so together, we went to Trent. Our orders were clear. All those who served Hell were to be killed.

“I’d said that so many times, those words: ‘All those who serve Hell are to be killed.’ I was so sure. I was so sure, Beauregard. Astrid and Eodwulf killed their parents with ease. But I couldn’t. They had just bought a house. We had lived in an apartment for my whole life, but they had just bought a house. They were so proud. And I set the thing ablaze. I burned it to the ground and as I heard their screams, something in me broke. I broke. I tried to save them. But Astrid stopped me. When Trent found out, he-” Caleb’s voice cut off. He was sobbing, shaking with the weight of them, tearing his chest apart with his rasping breath. Beau’s hand stayed on his knee, squeezed it, didn’t waver. She had him. “He broke me. He did something that broke me entirely.

“After that, I’m not sure. As far as I can tell, I spent ten years in a mental institution in France, all but comatose. I woke up properly when someone healed my mind. It was magic, I know that, but I don’t know who it was who cast the spell. From there, I ran. I went to England. A man helped me learn my magic again. I met Nott and built Modern Literature. We moved to Canada where we were arrested for stealing and broke out of jail. We met Fjord and ran from his demons to Los Angeles, where we found Caduceus and you.”

“You were made to do it,” Beau said.

“So what?” Caleb breathed it out.

“You were brainwashed.”

“So _what?”_ Caleb screamed. There passed between them a long moment of complete silence. The air was heavy with sorrow and fear. Caleb could taste that coming off of Beau. He couldn’t decide if she was afraid _for_ him or _of_ him, and he wasn’t sure which one she _should_ be. His heart almost stopped in his chest when she spoke.

“You’re a runner.” She said. There was something familiar in her voice. Caleb nodded, his chest beginning to numb. There was only so much of living this that he could take. After a while, his body shut it down. “You’re going to run.” There was certainty in her tone.

“That all depends on you, Beauregard.” He said.

“On what, if I can return the favor?” Beau never trusted anyone. She could never trust him.

“On if you can keep a secret.” Caleb retorted. Beau’s demeanor changed.

“I’m really good at keeping secrets, Caleb.”

He met her eyes for only a moment, caught blue with blue, and he knew that she wouldn’t tell anybody. Whether she was holding it so that she could use it against him or to protect him, he wasn’t sure, but she wouldn’t. He cast his eyes away and let his chest deflate.

“Now I know,” Beau whispered. A hollow, humorless laugh left Caleb’s lungs, mostly air. “So now, I can protect you. I know what I’m looking at and what you’re weak to in this, so I can safeguard.”

“Good,” Caleb muttered. “Good.”

“I’ll kill you if you hurt any of them,” Beau said.

“Thank you,” Caleb responded. “You’ve just put me through a very terrible thing, would you please leave?” Beau nodded, no offense on her face. She padded to the door and left without another word.

As soon as the door closed, Caleb collapsed. Sobs racked his body, awful sounds, like an animal about to die.

He had never told anybody the full story before. He had never told anybody the exact way in which he was broken.

He pulled himself together, wiping at his cheeks with the sleeves of his shirt and forcing his breathing to calm.

“Pull yourself together.” He whispered. “You don’t get to grieve.” He smacked his left wrist with his right hand three times and whispered a Hail Mary.

Caleb just barely understood how to work the iPad that he had gotten a few years ago for work purposes, but making a facetime call to the familiar UK number marked by a purple heart and a rainbow flag was perhaps the easiest thing to do on it. It rang a few times while he pulled at his hair and tried to forget the conversation that he’d just had. On the fifth ring, the call was answered, the image of Caleb that he was avoiding looking at shrinking to the top corner, replaced with the picture of something much nicer to look at.

“Caleb!” Shaun said, smile huge and white and overjoyed. It sank as soon as he got a look at Caleb. “You look awful!” Caleb couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face like butter.

“I can’t say the same to you,” Caleb replied easily. It was true. Even edging into old age, Gilmore was handsome, a dark mustache and goatee on his deep brown skin, round, full-faced, and sexy in a way that made Caleb worry about the human race and its cross-wiring of attractiveness and danger.

His time at Gilmore’s Glorious Goods was perhaps the closest that Caleb had gotten to true happiness after he left Berlin. He was a mess then, a twenty-something that was stumbling around Liverpool looking for a reason to live. Broken of magic and mind, Caleb was homeless, ill, and on death's door. He was so lucky that Gilmore had seen the magic in him. Gilmore had taken him in, taught him how to use his magic without hurting himself too much. He let Caleb stay with him, fed him, protected him. Caleb would equate him to a father figure if he hadn’t, in his abused and vulnerable state, absolutely fallen in love with the man. Gilmore was twice his age and viscerally sexy. Caleb couldn’t help his feelings. Of course, he had punished himself for them and of course, being a wonderful human being, Gilmore hadn’t taken advantage. Caleb still regarded his time at Gilmore’s with feelings of fondness and safety just as he did the man himself.

“What’s wrong, Widogast, you look like you’ve been dragged to hell and back.” Gilmore chucked deep in his chest, eyes warm as he tried to parse the problem out of Caleb. It wasn’t hard. Caleb was pouring it out at his feet, giving Gilmore the carefully edited version of events, avoiding mentioning Ikathon, Astrid, or Eodwulf by name. He had never told Gilmore what he was running from and Gilmore had never asked. So it came to pass that he never really got the full story, just enough panic attacks and flashbacks to know that it was a bad one.

“You’re sure it's a curse then?” Gilmore played absentmindedly with one of his rings, but Caleb could see the genuine worry in his eyes.

“Quite sure,” Caleb responded, gently poking at the band-aids on his forehead. Gilmore nodded and reached for something on the table behind the iPad he had set up.

“I’m going to send you a spell that I think will help. I know that you know what you’re doing darling, but I always feel better when my ducklings have the foolproof-est of spells.” Gilmore flipped through a few pages in the journal that he had picked up before he found the one that he wanted and dog-eared the page. Caleb smiled fondly.

“Thank you, Gilmore.” He said, blush creeping up his neck. Caleb’s infatuation with Gilmore was very much a think of the past, but he couldn’t help the fondness that lingered. “One more thing. The... person I’m dealing with, his magic isn’t something that I have found similar to in any of my studies. I was wondering if you knew anything about it.”

“Lay it on me, stud.” Gilmore cracked his knuckles and leaned forward as though to sit at attention.

“It is black, swirling smoke,” Caleb said. “It has a force, a mass to it, and it can move things, bruise, restrain, but it can also be breathed in, absorbed by the skin, and it can access the aura and soul with very little effort. Have you ever seen anything like that?” Caleb watched as the color drained from Gilmore’s face. His carefully constructed demeanor deflated and filled back up with worry and concern. Caleb’s heart dropped. Gilmore stood from where he sat and walked behind the camera.

“Vex, Percy, could you come here, please?” He called. Caleb began to get nervous. Gilmore appeared again behind the screen. Caleb could hear footsteps. “You said it was black smoke, with mass, but that it could also be absorbed, breathed in, and access the soul?” Gilmore crossed his arms and tugged lightly at his beard.

“Shit, are you serious?” There was a soft, tired voice from behind the camera. Gilmore made a motion as though to say, _come on._

A man just younger than Gilmore with stark white hair stepped in front of the iPad. He wore a day suit, very professional, and yet disheveled, as though he’s taken an afternoon nap without taking his jacket off. Over his suit was an apron that read _White Stone Clock Work_ across the chest. There was a streak of machine grease on his forehead and a series of scars that peaked out of his sleeves and kissed the tops of both of his hands.

“Caleb, this is Percival,” Gilmore introduced, “I think you two have a mutual thorn in your side.” Percival smiled nervously and raised his hand in greeting. Caleb waved back. “Why don’t you show him?”

Percival seemed to realize why he was there and rubbed his hands together, focusing his energy. With his brow creased and his hands began to glow black. Out of them poured smoke, vicious, poisonous, terrible stuff clouding around his hands. Caleb’s stomach flipped.

“Exactly that.” He managed, fighting back the feeling of that smoke setting his nerves on fire. “You are of magic?”

“No,” Percival responded, letting the smoke drift away from him. He shook his hands out, blinked a black cloud away from his eyes and took hold of Gilmore’s empty chair to steady himself. His soft stomach has shrunk into his suit. His cheeks sunk inward and his body shook from the effort. Caleb knew exactly what that felt like. Percival’s magic, whatever there was of it, ate off of him to survive. “No, but I had a brush with a demon that bonded with me. It's just residual and it, as you can see, it takes a lot out of me.” Gilmore patted him on the shoulder.

“Caleb, have you heard the name Orthax before?” Gilmore chanced. The name sent a shiver up Caleb’s spine. He pushed through his memory, avoiding the worst of it, and tried to hear the name again. It was somewhere in the back of his mind, but inaccessible. He had heard it before, he knew that much, but he couldn’t place where exactly. That never happened to Caleb. That wasn’t how his mind worked. He nodded all the same.

“What _have_ you done to my husband, Gilmore?” There was a call from outside of the shot. In came a tall woman, clutching at her Percival’s arm, inspecting his face for any sign of distress or pain. This woman, Caleb knew. A few members of what Gilmore referred to as Vox Machina had visited while Caleb took refuge at Glorious Goods. Vex’ahlia and her brother, Vax’ildan were two. Vex’ahlia looked like a dancer, serenely beautiful. Raven hair, tawny skinned, a true testament to the idea of strength cased up in control, pulling off the title that she had given herself- Mother Superior- with more grace than any nun Caleb had ever known. He’d only met her the once, but as soon as she had recognized the look of a lost soul, she had all but adopted him. Even twenty years out from the last time Caleb had seen her, she hadn’t aged a day. There wasn’t a grey hair on her head, not a wrinkle in her skin, not a hunch in her back or stumble in her step. She should be nearing fifty at that point, but she looked perpetually twenty-five.

“I think that we’ve taken enough of Caleb’s time,” Gilmore said, spotting the mother hen rising in Vex at his scraggly appearance. “Let’s let him get some rest, yes?” Percival disappeared from Caleb’s view and Vex waved slyly before following. “And call me if you need me, Caleb. You know that I can get to you if I need to.” Gilmore’s smile was warm. Caleb nodded.

“I know.” He said. The call ended on Gilmore’s smiling face.

For some reason, the thought of sleeping alone set Caleb’s teeth on edge. He didn’t want to be left in a room by himself. He didn’t want the other side of his bed to be cold. So, still in his clothes, he left his room for Mollymauk’s.

Nott was hiding in the corner of the hallway, concealed in darkness from most eyes. Caleb spotted her almost immediately. She was next to Beau’s door.

“She was crying,” Nott said, stepping out of shadow, “when she left your room, she was crying.” Caleb nodded, his chin tucked to his chest. Nott took ahold of his hand, thin, too-long fingers curling around his.

“Would you leave with me tomorrow, if I asked?” Caleb whispered. “Just the two of us? Would you do that?”

“Of course.” Nott didn’t hesitate. “Of course I would, anything you want.” Her thumb traced against his knuckle. “But I don’t think that’s what you want.” Caleb smiled and took a knee. He wrapped his arms around Nott, pulling her into his chest, wrapping himself around her. She made a sound of distress more for him than for herself, Caleb thought, and took to rubbing circles on his back.

“It’s okay,” she said, “it’s going to be fine, Caleb.” He shook his head in her shoulder. They must have stayed there for ten minutes before he untangled himself and pushed back his hair.

“It’s late.” He said. His voice was raw from screaming and crying. “You should sleep.”

“So should you,” Nott said. He nodded. Nott cupped his face in her hands and tugged his head down to plant a kiss on his brow. “I love you.” she whispered.

“ _Ich liebe dich auch._ ” Caleb said. Nott squeezed his hand again and then disappeared.

Caleb rapped his knuckles against Molly’s door three times and waited patiently for it to open. He felt nauseous, his stomach sore from all of the crying he had done. He realized how much his head still hurt and how badly he wanted to sleep for a few days. He couldn’t, though. There was work to be done in the morning. He had to properly break this curse, to figure out exactly who Orthax was and why he couldn’t retrieve the name from his memory, and figure out who had cast the curse on him in the first place.

Mollymauk was wearing his kimono when he opened the door, a short, silk black thing adorned with flowers that he loved. He would sometimes wear it over an outfit, but most of the time, it was what he wore to feel delicate and beautiful. Caleb had told him time and time again that he was always, always beautiful. Molly’s hair was braided back, a messy affair that started at his hairline and wrapped around his head, ending in a bun above his right ear. His earrings were gone, his skin free of metal and his makeup wiped off. Caleb could see the lines of golden sun wrapping around his shoulder and dancing across his skin, interrupted by fine, white scars. There were a few that were just beginning to heal, red, angry things that Caleb hated. He hated seeing Molly hurt, even if it was necessary. He could see that there was some flirtation or clever phrase on Molly’s lips, but as soon as he saw Caleb standing in his doorway, saw the hollow look in his eyes, it fell away.

  
“Oh, _Querido,”_ Molly opened his arms up and Caleb all but collapsed into them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always you can find me on tumblr at gayshitiguess.


	6. Stoke the Flames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The emoji system, dancing, the Peaches, clay doorways, poinson, and blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blessed Yule everybody! I hoped everybody survived the holidays. I know it can be rough with family, just remember that you’re gayer and stronger than all of them. If you want to see some if the holiday exploits of the Mighty Nein, go check out “The Times are Tidy,” the holiday story I wrote for this universe! I had a great time writing it and I hope y’all enjoy it! 
> 
> Anyway, here’s the newest chapter! Shits starting to get crazy, you guys!! I’m really excited for the next few chapters. We’re about half way through the story now, so things are going to start picking up steam. I hope you enjoy! You can find me on tumblr at gayshitiguess. Come and scream about Critical Role with me. With three weeks before the next episode, I’m ready for death.

Gilmore had faxed the spell to Caleb, scanned out of his grand Grimoire on the copier-printer-fax machine that Caleb had sent him for Yule a few years ago. Gilmore’s handwriting was pretty to look at, distinctly Elizabethan cursive, but it was also very hard to read. Caleb spent an hour transcribing the spell from Gilmore’s writing into his own Grimoire. He put the spell away for the moment, not sure enough in his magic's stability to cast anything. 

There was a text from Nila waiting for him on the small flip phone that he carried for necessity’s sake only. It was a short prayer, something akin to the things that Caduceus would whisper when healing. Caleb was convinced that Gilmore had started a club for bothering him at his slightest inconvenience. No doubt that he had informed everyone who had ever come in contact with Caleb that he could use the extra energies. His annoyance was cut with warmth and he sent a thank you message back. 

He sat for a moment, staring at his phone’s dark screen. Nila sent a message back, the vibrations startling him, but he didn’t read it. Her name, marked by a red heart, disappeared back into the darkness. The emoji system was something that he and Beauregard had made together. She had once expressed a fear that she would mention something gay to someone who didn’t know or wouldn’t be okay with it. He had suggested that they use the rainbow flag emoji to mark the names of others who were LGBTQ and a flag in parenthasis for those to whom it was safe to mention. He could tell that Beau was always nervous when she said the word ‘lesbian,’ when she looked at a girl for too long,  or when it came up in casual conversation. He knew that fear. It sparked in his own chest. It lived in his own cheeks. It drowned his own brain. 

He shivered  at the thought of Beauregard. 

Caleb snapped his fingers and Frumpkin was on his shoulders, purring loudly and sending vibrations through his neck and shoulders. He let the sensation ground him, pull him away from things he didn’t need to think about. 

“ _ Okay, du Scheiße, du könntest genauso gut arbeiten.”  _ He flinched at the sound of his own language. 

Orthax was all but missing from every single book on demons that Caleb could put his hands on. He had hundreds of tomes about the demonic arts and the inner circles of Hell, detailing the social orders and naming each of them. There was power in a demon’s name. Having it could mean the difference of sending it back to Hell or killing it, inconveniencing it or wiping it from the face of the earth. Every ritual that Caleb knew to kill a demon required its name. Having Orthax’s mean t that he could simply summon it, keep it contained in a circle, and then dismiss it from reality. Even if it wasn’t detailed in his books, he could just summon it anyway and be done with it. 

The problem, really, was that without the confirmation of his research, Caleb wasn’t positive that it even  _ was  _ a demon. If it was something else, an abomination of Hell, some foul creation of evil intent, or even something of Angelic origin, there was no guarantee that his rituals would work. Caleb trusted Gilmore explicitly, but it was hard to tell exactly what some ancient things were when there was no written record of them. Caleb valued his knowledge, but Gilmore used magic very differently from him. He was a powerhouse in battle. He could sling spells for as long he liked and maintain his demeanor through exhaustion and injury. Caleb wasn’t like that. His energy was limited. He had to choose what he was doing very carefully. He had to be calculated, precise. He couldn’t just summon something and blast it back to Hell if something didn’t go right. That wasn’t how he operated. 

It was edging on noon and Caleb had been working for hours. At some point, Caduceus had brought him food and tea, but both had gone cold since he had been reading. He was searching through the front of the shop now. He kept most of his magical tomes in the back for safe keeping, but sometimes they crept to the front without his knowledge. He had three books in his arms, one flipped open and scanned quickly. Caleb was glad that he could read so fast. He would have spent the whole day reading carefully through hundreds of pages if he couldn’t simply scan through. 

He sighed and abandoned the open book onto the counter. Another ancient spine cracked open, pages fluttered, and another book his the counter. Caleb loved research, but this kind of work was eating up his soul. 

That was when, mercifully, Molly emerged from the back of the shop. 

He wasn’t wearing makeup and his hair was pulled back neatly out of his face. A departure from the past few weeks, Molly looked rather masculine. He varied, depending on the day, Caleb learned. Some days he was entirely feminine, breaking out his collection of skirts and heels and bright, bold lipsticks. Some days, he was masculine, smart trousers, loafers, finely pressed buttons ups. Some days, he was somewhere in between, mini skirts, t-shirts, bowling jackets, and Air Jordans. He was wearing a purple short sleeved button up, not very well suited for the cool, Oregon weather, but very well fitted to his lean but muscular form. He had rolled up the sleeves a bit, making them cling to his biceps. It was unbuttoned to his navel, maybe two hole buttons fastened properly. Caleb couldn’t always tell if this habit was a result of laziness or Molly’s constant agenda to be as lewd as he possibly could without being arrested. Whatever the reason, Caleb’s cheeks heated up as he recognized that he really didn’t mind. Molly smiled as he entered the front, knocked the door closed with his hip, and jumped up onto the counter in front of Caleb. 

“Hey there, handsome,” he tucked a stray lock of hair behind Caleb’s ear, “you look stressed out.” Caleb couldn’t help but smile. 

“Do you intend to ease my suffering?” As he s p oke, he collected his books and clutched them to his chest, closing himself off. Molly didn’t seem to read the signal. 

“You know that I’m really good at that, don’t you?” His voice was all too deep and his eyes half-lidded. Caleb’s heart jumped to his throat and he turned to return his books to their shelves. Molly didn’t chase after him. He was a tease, no doubt, but one that Mollymauk was not was desperate. 

“So you have told me.” Caleb couldn’t quite comprehend why he was acting like this. He couldn’t understand why he was putting that distance between himself and Molly. He always found comfort in Mollymauk’s presence, whatever form it came in. He denied himself it, sometimes, when he was feeling guilty. He denied himself the things that made himself feel safe or at ease. His skin was itching with exhaustion and anxiety, and he wouldn’t allow himself the warmth of Mollymauk against him. Maybe that was cruel to himself. Maybe that was cruel to Molly. It was a habit that he couldn’t seem to break. 

“ _ Cabeza,”  _ Molly called from the counter. Oh dear, that was serious. Molly had a hierarchy of nicknames. They ranged from sweetheart to dumbass, and he had specific ones for every person in the Mighty Nien. Caleb easily had the most, the most frequent among them being ‘beloved,’ which Molly could utter in battle, in tender moments, in heated arguments, wherever. A few of them were reserved for more delicate times, the silly, mostly. Ones that he knew would make Caleb laugh. ‘Noodle’ and ‘Stringbean’ where the most popular, and he always meant them more when he said them in Spanish. As soon as he heard it, Caleb stopped, sucked in a deep breath, and blew it out slowly. He emerged again from the bookshelves and approached Molly’s perch on the counter. He was swinging his legs, smile creeping onto his face. 

“Dance with me, won’t you?” It was a whisper, but there was heat behind it, intention. Caleb studied Molly’s lips, the too-sharp teeth hiding behind them. He tapped his wrist with two fingers. He nodded. 

Molly slunk from the counter with such grace, like a boneless thing. He took Caleb’s hand in his own, braced the other against Caleb’s waist. Long, pointed fingernails painted bright green dug softly into Caleb’s skin, gently scratching through his shirt, sending shivers up his spine. Molly took the lead and Caleb, as always, didn’t mind a bit. He hummed, off pitch, in his chest and lazily waltzed Caleb around the small patch of clear space in the shop. Caleb let his head fall forward. He was taller than Molly, so he bent his neck and rested his forehead against Molly’s shoulder. Molly kept humming as he turned to kiss the side of Caleb’s head. 

“It’s going to be okay, babe.” Molly said. “It may seem like the world is falling apart right now, but it's going to be fine. I’ve got you.” He wrapped his arms around Caleb, more hug than dance now. Caleb shook his head in Molly’s shoulder but didn’t pull away. He was so, so afraid, and if he could stay where he was, wrapped in Molly’s arms, warm and flushed and embarrassed, then maybe it  _ would  _ be okay. Maybe he could be okay. 

_ Boys Wanna Be Her  _ by the Peaches rang from Molly’s phone. He untangled an arm from around Caleb to answer it, keeping Caleb tucked against him as he took Yasha’s call. 

“ _ Hola, Corazón,”  _ Molly answered easily, “where are you this fin-” Molly’s voice cut out. Caleb couldn’t hear what Yasha was saying, but Molly froze, backed ever so slightly away from Caleb and tightened his hold on Caleb’s waist. Caleb cupped his hand around Molly’s neck. “Are you hurt?” Molly’s voice was suddenly very calm, serious, measured. He talked like that when he had something very important to do, when someone was relying on him. All traces of flirtation were missing. “Where are you?” There was a short answer, and Molly nodded. “Hold on, hold on, baby, let me put you on speaker.” Molly drew the phone from his ear. Yasha’s voice rang through the speaker, as ruffled as he’d ever heard her. 

“I’m in Oregon and I’ve just run into some people,” Yasha said, her voice strained and cracking with effort. Caleb could tell that she was running. 

“Yasha, are you near buildings?” Caleb called through the phone. Yasha stammered for a few moments, but eventually, through heavy huffs of breath, she answered. 

“Yes, a few houses.” Her voice was thick with panic and pain. Molly ghosted his fingers against his lips and pinched his brow in concern. 

“Find the street name, pick a door, and tell me which number it is.” Caleb reached into his pocket and retrieved a hunk of mostly-dried out clay. He held it in one palm, spit a few times in the other, and began to massage the clay into moldability. Soon enough, his hands were covered in red and the clay was wet, earthy, and warm. 

“Sunrise Avenue,” Yasha said, “357 Sunrise Avenue.” Caleb shaped the clay into a rectangle in his hand and clapped it into the ground. 

“357 Sunrise Avenue,” he repeated, his hands glowing gold. As his chest began to ache, the clay rectangle grew, spreading across the floor of the shop. Caleb took a step back, nudged Molly’s leg to have him do the same, and, after a deep breath, stuck his torso through. He felt hands grab onto his ankles to keep him from falling. Yasha was standing a few steps back from the door, most likely trying to look the kind of inconspicuous that was impossible for a giant woman covered in wounds and carrying a huge sword. He reached out his hand, the switch in gravity making his head swim. Yasha jumped back in surprise, but her eyes softened with relief when she recognized him. He reached out his hand, Yasha clapped hers into it. Caleb’s eyes cast behind her, searching down the street for whatever monstrosity had managed to make Yasha run. 

A woman, tall, well built, her hands glowing a sickly green. Her hair was long and blonde, flowing behind her. Her face was severe, scarred from torture and punishments that Caleb remembered. That Caleb shared. Blue eyes, paler than his, blue eyes that he knew. 

Caleb could feel that blonde hair brushing against his face as she was balanced on top of him, could see those thin lips moving without hearing a thing. He could see those pale blue eyes, hungry and unrelenting. 

He was grateful for Molly’s hands around his ankles, otherwise, he would have toppled out of the door. Yasha’s hand tightened around his, bone breaking grip tightening even further as she turned. A flash of green spread across the wall next to Caleb, dripping, ugly energy that looked poisonous. Yasha’s other hand came to meet his shoulder as she forced him back through the door. 

Halfway through the door, Molly and Caleb had to brace and help pull Yasha through the door, the unexpected gravity catching her off guard. Caleb realized that he was breathing very heavily, drawing oxygen into his lungs so quickly that his lips were beginning to numb. Molly was gripping at Yasha, wrapping his arms around her and trying to apply pressure to her wounds while hugging her as close to his chest as he could. The door was still open, and Caleb was staring through 357 Sunrise Avenue at Astrid, eyes burning as they tore into his. 

He raised his hand to wave away the door, but she was faster than him. Green filled his vision as her poison nailed him in the chest. His hand moved just after, cutting the connection. The golden doorway fizzled into sparks and dust, and the acidic nature of Astrid's magic was burning into his chest. He tore at his sweater, pulling it over his head, trying to remove as much of it as he could before it ate him whole like it had her family. Caleb remembered the way that her mother had crumpled with only a short cry before her lungs were corroded. He remembered how her younger sister had clutched at her head trying to tear away the poison but only tearing away skin and hair as they melted. It was something that was burned into his memory and was burning into his chest. 

With his outer layers missing, Caleb could feel the poison beginning to slow. He pressed his hands into his shirt and tried to slow the beating of his heart and the burn of his skin.

“Oh, God, Caleb, baby,” Molly cupped Caleb’s cheek and ran his thumb across the rough skin of his cheek. “Baby, are you okay?” Caleb tried to answer, but his voice was lost somewhere, tucked away where he couldn’t reach it. Molly’s eyes were wide when Caleb met them, something foreign and terrible in them. A sick kind of determination. 

And very suddenly, Caleb felt much better. Where the burns of Astrid’s magic had left his skin rough and blistered, warmth spread, healing over it. It felt like Caduceus’ magic, that soothing sew of the flesh, but not quite. Where Caduceus’ magic made the air smell faintly of honeysuckles, there was the taste of copper in the back of his throat and lavender dancing in the air. Molly gasped, wrenching his hand back from Caleb’s cheek. Dull, black magic lingered around his fingers. He blinked, and, as his eyes opened, the right one was covered in a film of blood. He winced as blood dripped down from his eye like a tear. 

“What the fuck was that?” Molly breathed. “What the fuck did I just do?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me on tumblr at gayshitiguess.


	7. Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Healing, signs, arguments, tea, and hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god this chapter was a challenge. I want y’all to know that I haven’t read over this or had it beta’d by my lovely editor. I had not only a terrible writers block, but I also am super sick. I’ve been sitting at home trying to write this in between being sick and episodes of Lucifer. Please forgive the late hour and any possible errors. At this point, I’m just glad to have it posted. Also, be advised, there are some heavy themes of sexual assault in this chapter. Absolutely nothing graphic, but it is discussed. Please be safe. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy it! As always, you can find me on tumblr at gayshitiguess. Please come and distract me from my illness. I love asks soo much and I need the distraction, trust me. Thanks for reading!

Caleb was sure that Caduceus was going to drain himself dry with the amount of healing he had done in the past few days. There was hardly a scratch left on Caleb after Molly’s attention and, as the cuts and bruises adorning Yasha began to fade, it was becoming clear how very close she had been to being in proper, life or death trouble. There were burns covering her torso, acidic ashes that tore through her flesh. She winced as Caduceus ran pink over her. He looked tired, Caddy. Like he’d just woken up. Caleb knew Clay fairly well, certainly well enough to know when he was pushing himself beyond his limits for the good of others. Caduceus was far from self-sacrificial, but his self care would always come after the care of others. It was his nature, Caleb supposed. At Home, Caduceus had cared for the souls of the dead, and he had developed a bit of a soft spot for humans. That soft spot had carried over to the living. Caleb could hardly blame him. They were an interesting lot, human beings. Certainly worth interest. Maybe not admiration, but definitely interest. 

He would have to remind himself to coax Caddy to rest after this. He leaned over Yasha, his height only just capping hers, and sniffed at her hair. 

“Did you get hit by lightning?” He asked. She smiled softly and tapped her fingers together. 

“I thought you were just fighting a mean lady, I didn’t know there was lightning!” Jester said as wrapped herself around one of Yasha’s arms, refusing to let go until she knew for sure that Yasha was a) totally fine and b) not going anywhere. Yasha’s smile was still small, but the fondness behind it doubled. 

“I think I got a sign.” She said quietly, like she was afraid that announcing it would devoid whatever  _ it  _ was. Caduceus’ face split out in a huge smile. 

“That’s-well that’s just great.” Clay said, running his thumb across a cut on her cheek, leaving the skin closed if slightly scarred in his wake. “Congratulations, that’s wonderful.” 

Sometimes, Caleb swore that they spoke an entirely different language. It wasn’t one that he knew how to navigate, but it was one that he could recognize as holy and private. The three of them knew exactly what they were talking about. It wasn’t in his right to interfere. He turned his attention back to the spell materials in front of him. 

Molly’s favorite black candle was lit before him, a small ritual circle spread out on his desk. The small ball of clay that he had used to retrieve Yasha was warmed in his hand as he rolled it around. Let the smooth stuff massage between his fingers as he dipped his thumb into one of the bowls of water that Caduceus consistently left out in the sun to be charged. He drew his thumb from his forehead to his chin, dipped his thumb again and drew a second line across his eyes from ear to ear. He blew out his breathe from between his teeth and mumbled a to himself as he began to roll the clay into a ball. 

“Crowns of Madness, loss of energy, tormented dreams, spells of pain.” He chanted. “Astrid.” He said. He was sure, now. He knew that it was Astrid. 

He took the ball of clay and flattened it into a disc. With a pencil he dug a small hole into the top of it and a sigil that Nott had shown him. It was sometime within the first year that they’d known each other, and it was perhaps his favorite memory of her. Modern Literature was just a storefront he’d bought with what little money Gilmore had given him. They were sitting in the back room next to the fireplace. She had told him as she drew it on his arm with bold, black ink that it was meant for protecting a home, and that since he was her home, it would work for him. They’d used it ever since, just the two of them. It was a swirling, curling letter that resembled an ‘S’ with several lines running through the body and cutting it into pieces. It was so familiar to him that he needed not look at the tattoo of it on his left wrist or the many doodles of it in his notebooks. 

“No more befouled,” he whispered, “again unbound. Again unbidden.” He took the clay in his hand and lit a fire in his palm, white and blue, hot enough to melt. He closed his hand around it and let the fire rage. When he opened his palm and extinguished the flame, the clay was shining red, ceramic and soft to the touch. He let it cool, strung black twine through the hole, and hung the medallion around his neck. 

Mollymauk was in Caleb’s room when he went to change his clothing, long legs folded under him and hands hanging in his lap. The sight of Molly shaken wasn’t a usual one. Molly was someone who was never disillusioned about himself or his life. He knew who he was. He knew what his place was. The upset of suddenly having access to his past had left him reeling, but only for a few months. Once he decided to reconcile past and present for the sake of the future, he was back to that unbridled sense of self. But now, sitting on Caleb’s bed, staring at his hands, Molly looked nothing like himself. 

“ _ Shaltz,”  _ Caleb said, “are you alright?” Caleb approached slowly. 

“I don’t know what that was.” He whispered. “I don’t know what I did.” 

“We will figure it out.” Caleb said, “We can contact a few bloodhunters and see what other experiences are. It will be fine,  _ Shaltz.”  _ Caleb sat on the bed next to Molly and rested his hand on the duvet. Molly’s long, thin fingers met his, twining them together. He reveled in the cool metal of Molly’s rings. 

“I’m sorry,” Molly said, “this isn’t about me.” He kissed Caleb’s fingers. 

“No,” Caleb ran his thumb over Molly’s long fingernails, “you don’t need to be sorry. It was something new and unusual. It was alarming. It's fine to be alarmed.” Molly smiled. 

“What about you?” Molly asked. “You seemed pretty freaked out, after that whole thing. Is everything okay?” Molly twisted Caleb’s new necklace in his fingers. 

“I’m not sure that I want to talk about it.” Caleb said, staring at the crisp fold of Molly’s trousers. “It’s- I don’t want to talk about it.” He stumbled. Molly blew his breathe out of his nose but nodded. 

“Okay.” He said. “But don’t think I haven’t forgotten about that therapy appointment. We’ll reschedule when we get back to LA.” 

“If we get back to LA.” Caleb muttered. Molly creased his brow. 

“Of course we will.” Molly said. “We’ll figure this out and then we’ll go home.” Caleb shook his head. 

“These people,” he said, “they are dangerous. Beyond dangerous. I don’t know if we  _ can  _ fight them, let alone  _ should.  _ It is foolish to think with such confidence.” Molly tutted his tongue against his teeth in the way he did when he was annoyed. 

“We’re not giving up. We’re not going to let them keep you paranoid and in pain forever. Caleb, I think that you need this! I think that you need to deal with this instead of running away from it!” 

“Do you think I enjoy this?” Caleb found himself yelling. “Do you think I enjoy dragging myself around the world trying to escape this man to keep my family safe, to keep  _ you  _ safe? I am doing this to keep you safe!” 

“Bullshit!” Molly yelled, standing from his spot on the bed. “Bullshit, you’re running because you’re scared and you’re traumatized and you don’t know what to do otherwise! Running is the only thing you’ve done in this situation and you can’t do anything else!” 

“You have no idea what I can do!” Caleb’s voice ripped from him much louder than he intended. He could feel his hands begin to heat up and smoke twisting through his fingers. Molly’s eyes were locked with his. He didn’t look afraid. He didn’t seem to understand just how dangerous Caleb really was. Molly’s voice was the sound of anger barely contained, heat wrapped up in a shaking whisper. 

“You need to prioritize. You need to figure out what you want. When you do, we’re all going to be here, but remember that these people know where we are. They know what you can do. If they strike before we get a chance, there is absolutely no way that we win this.” He took in a deep breath. “Even though I’m angry with you, it doesn’t change the fact that I care about you very much. Please don’t think it does.” 

The door to Caleb’s room shut behind Molly. He let the smoke around his hands dissipate. 

He wasn’t angry anymore. He was guilty. 

Frumpkin appeared on his shoulders without his permission, but he didn’t snap him away. Instead, he laid no his bed, let Frumpkin curl on top of his chest, needing into his skin and purring. 

“What did I do?” He asked, running his hands through Frumpkin’s fur. “Why do I do that?” Frumpkin made a small sound and bopped his nose against Caleb’s. “Maybe it's for the best.” Frumpkin started purring against and pawed at his cheek. “I’m bad for people, Frumpkin. I shouldn’t be around him, I’ll ruin him. And he’s so good, he’s  _ so good,  _ I can’t let myself ruin him.” Frumpkin dug his claws in a little, a sharp reminder of disapproval. 

There was a knock at Caleb’s door. He sat up as the door opened. 

Clay had a way of knowing exactly what had happened in a room just by the smell of it. He could pick up the little details, the ugly arguments, the sweet moments, just by stepping inside of a space. Caleb had found it creepy and intrusive when he first met Caduceus, but the longer that he knew him, the more it became a bit of a relief. Caleb didn’t have to explain those moments when words so often failed him. Caduceus just had to poke his head into the door to see what had happened. 

“Oh dear,” he muttered, “that’s the last thing you need right now, isn’t it?” He had two cups of tea in his hands, gently balanced. He set one of them down on Caleb’s bedside table and cupped the other in his hands. “I mean, none of my business, but if you do want to talk about it...” 

“I’m going to ruin him.” Caleb said before he could stop himself. He took a sip of his tea. It was still too hot to drink. 

“You’ve got to be patient.” Caduceus said. Caleb turned it over in his head. He knew that he was getting better. Even from this time last year, he was a better person. He wasn’t a good one, but he wasn’t as self destructive, as dangerous to himself and others. Clay had a point. Maybe all he needed was to wait this out. “With the tea I mean.” Caduceus added. Or maybe Caduceus’ dulcet tones just made everything he said sound like some grand spiritual revelation. “But about the ruining Molly thing, I thought you’d moved passed that particular line of thinking.” 

“I feel toxic.” Caleb whispered. He let his fingers burn on the ceramic of the cup. “I feel like I ruin people.” 

“You don’t ruin people.” Caduceus said. “We were together for two years and you didn’t ruin me. You haven’t ruined Nott or Fjord. You don’t ruin people.” 

“Yasha got hurt today because of me.” He ran his thumb over the rim of the mug. 

“That was that person’s fault, not yours. You didn’t hurt Yasha.” Caduceus ran his fingers across Caleb’s forearm. 

“It was Astrid.” Caleb said. The name was poison on his tongue. Caduceus stumbled at that. 

“Astrid, like-“

“Yes.” Caleb cut in. “ _ That  _ Astrid.” Caduceus didn’t say anything for a few moments. Caleb had never known someone who picked their words so carefully. Caduceus wasn’t someone who necessarily edited what he said, but when he was giving someone advice, he made sure that he knew exactly what he wanted to say. It was cute, watching him think. That soft pink glow that drifted around him made the room feel warm. 

Caduceus wasn’t necessarily attractive. He hadn’t quite gotten the human form right when he chose it. He was too tall, too lean, he resembled a skeleton in some ways. Many people would be off put by the whole thing, if it weren’t for his fey ancestry. He had a faint pink glow, a kind of air around him that made most people look twice. It made him feel safe, warm, and beautiful. He was the kind of beautiful that Caleb was weak to. Unconventional, unquestionable. 

“Astrid’s actions, even when influenced by you, are still her own.” He said after a while. “And you couldn’t have stopped her. So, it's not your fault. As for the Molly thing, you don’t ruin people. It may be rough going right now, but you just need to be patient.” Caduceus smiled and pressed a kiss to Caleb’s forehead. 

Caleb ran his fingers over his mug and smiled. 

“You should get some sleep, Caddy.” He said after a moment. “You’ve been taking care of all of us, take care of you.” Caduceus ducked his head but nodded. 

“So should you.” Caduceus said, draining the last of his tea and patting Caleb on the head. “You need to be well rested.” Something in his tone was fundamentally unsettling, but Caleb didn’t question it. 

Caleb took his time drinking the rest of his tea, and fiddled with the wire in his pocket. He considered calling Nott and asking her what to do about Molly, but he decided against it, just twisted the wire around his ring finger.

With his mind idled, Caleb kept thinking back to Astrid. It wasn’t a welcome line of thinking, but her eyes kept pouring into his. Those pale, blue things. 

He kept seeing her perched over him, hands pinning down his shoulders. He was skinny when he was younger, not as strong as her. She could overpower him. Her hair, which was usually pinned back in plated braids was falling out, brushing against his cheeks. Her lips were thin and moving, but he had locked himself away somewhere else. 

“This is for you, Caleb,” She said, and he barely heard her, “to take your mind off Wulf. This is how it's supposed to go.” 

Caleb shook his head, banished the thought. 

Jester was making cookies in the kitchen. She called a greeting to him and he barely waved. Fjord was stacking books up on his desk when he entered the iron room and Caleb didn’t even acknowledge his wave. The front of the shop was abandoned. Late afternoon sun danced through the clouded windows. He opened the door to the shop and stepped out into the cool December air. He didn’t have his coat, so he just haunches his shoulders and let the wind cut through him. It smelled like pine needles and dirt. He dug the heel of his shoe into the ground, tearing up the dirt. 

A twig snapped a few feet to his left. Caleb kept his gaze forward, pretended that he didn’t notice. He reached into his pocket and pulled out he palm sized crystal. It took a bit of digging, considering the enchantment that he’d put on his pockets to make them carry more than they should. He gripped it in his fist and focused on what he wanted it to spew. Ice, he thought. He’d go for ice. 

Another twig snapped, Caleb moved before they had a chance to. The crystal spun out of his hand. And crashed into the chest of the man standing just beyond the shade of the willow tree. He heard the impact, the sound of air escaping lung out of force rather than choice or habit. There was a crack as a body met a tree at too great a force. A slump into the ground. Caleb fought to keep his breath under control. He made his feet silent on the ground. He emerged from the willow tree slowly, a hand crackling with black smoke and fire. 

Crumbled at the base of a hemlock tree, chest covered with ice slowly beginning to melt, was Eudwulf. 

Green eyes poured into his, brown hair cut almost to the scalp matted with blood. Lips like velvet, quirked in something between a grimace and a smile. 

“Bren,” Wulf said, his name spread soft like honey, “Bren.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me on tumblr at gayshitiguess.


	8. Disparate Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A familiar face, vunerabilaties, amethyst, sulfur, the nature of trust, and a prison detail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y’all I think I’m burning out. I really love this freaking story and I know where I want to go but damn it’s getting hard to write. I don’t think I’m burned out from this story, but kind of writing in general. It could, of course, be from not having Critical Role for three weeks. Who’s excited for the new episode?? Anyway, I’m sorry for coming in late with this guy. Also, my beta is amazing and she didn’t read over this because I literally just finished it. I’m not going to ask her to read and edit something in a matter of hours. Nevertheless, she is amazing and I appreiciate her even though I’m The Worst lol <3\. So, any mistakes that are in this one are on me lol. Thank you for reading! If you enjoy it, drop me a comment to let me know!! Nothing motivates quite like a comment! You can find me on tumblr at gayshitiguess. Come and say hello! I love getting asks!

Eudwulf looked almost exactly the same as the last time that Caleb had seen him. Caleb thought that maybe Wulf was the one constant, a universal pillar in his life of ever changing variables. He had a new scar across his right eyebrow, but his skin was that same olive shade, still freckled in the same infrequent places. His face was still round, still a bit too soft. His clothes were plain, a green canvas jacket, a pair of jeans that were a size too big. No collar, no sign of the priesthood. There was a rosary around his neck, soft pearl beads connected by gold wiring. It was his mothers. Caleb had watched as Wulf took it from her neck after he’d stabbed her in the back. There had been blood on it, but he hung it around his neck anyway. If he squinted, Caleb imagined that he could still see that stain over the pale beads. Wulf raised his hands, thin fingers, quick, clever, up into the air, a sign of surrender that was all too unfamiliar. 

Caleb let his hands burn out, let the smoke fall behind him. 

“Bren,” Wulf tried again. Caleb moved forward, took hold of Wulf’s jacket and tugged it off of him. A folded knife fell out of his left sleeve. In only a t-shirt, he’d have to lung for a knife, move his hands, make some obvious movement. 

“Caleb,” he snapped, “you call me nothing but that name. Empty your pockets.” He kicked the knife behind him, not so far that he would lose it. 

“Bren, please,” his voice was getting desperate. 

“Stop talking this moment.” Caleb’s voice was dripping with venom. “Stop talking before I decide to kill you. Empty your fucking pockets.” Wulf seemed to get the message and moved his hands slowly, deliberately giving away his every movement. He produced two more knives, a wallet with no money and no ID in it, and a burner cell phone. Caleb took the phone in his hands. 

There were two numbers in it. Caleb could guess who they belonged to. 

“You realize that this could lead them right to you?” Caleb turned the phone off, placed it on the ground, and crushed it under his heel. “Of course, that’s assuming that you don’t want them to find you.” 

“Please, let me explain.” Green eyes were covered in a sheet of tears. 

“I told you to stop talking.” One of Caleb’s hands started to crackle again, little embers burning through his flesh. “You have seen what I can do. You no longer move my heart, Eudwulf, do not think that I won’t end you this moment if I see fit.” Wulf’s mouth snapped shut. He sat back on his heels. He looked off somewhere a few feet behind Caleb, lost somewhere else. Caleb dug into his pocket and produced the wire again. He twisted it into a circle and called to Nott. 

“Nott, could you please bring Caduceus and Yasha outside this moment? Please.” He couldn’t hide the urgency in his voice. Nott’s voice rung out in his ear. 

“Of course, are you okay? Youcanreplytothismessage.” She said. Caleb thought for a moment before he replied. 

“No.” 

It took Nott all of twenty five seconds to arrive outside, skittering up behind Caleb’s legs. Nott, who usually spent her time in the shadows, who hid from sight even from those she trusted and loved, was in front of Caleb in an instant, crossbow drawn, ready arrow pointed at the soft spot between Wulf’s eyes. 

“Who the fuck are you?” She screeched. Wulf opened his mouth but nothing came out, his eyes blown wide with panic. There were two sets of heavy footsteps behind Caleb. Yasha’s hand met his left shoulder, firm, ready to steady him or gently move him behind herself. He heard the metal of her sword connect with the ground. Caduceus made a small sound of interest to his right. 

“You should answer her.” Caleb said. “She is much less hesitant than I am.” Wulf’s eyes were large, afraid, so much like Caleb’s. 

“I am Eudwulf.” Clay stiffened next to him, Nott took a step closer, a growl building somewhere in her chest. Caleb tapped the back of her knee with his toe, asking her not to kill him. “I need your help.” 

“Why the  _ fuck _ would we help you?” Nott asked. “You hurt him! I should kill you right now!” 

“I know.” Eudwulf’s voice was so devoid of anything. He sounded defeated. “I know what I did and I deserve that death. I deserve anything you do to me. Ikathon is coming. He wants you, Caleb. He wants you so badly. He will kill your friends, he will kill this town, he will kill the world to get to you. I ran. I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t be a part of that. I had to run.” Caleb studied him carefully, noted the shaking, the tears, the earnest, desperate eyes. And Caleb believed him. Mostly. Almost. 

“Do you have anything on you that he can use to track you?” Caleb asked, extinguishing the flame in his hand. Yasha puffed up her chest, made herself look bigger, like she was trying to ward off a bear. 

“No.” He said. Caleb caught Wulf’s eye, something that he almost never did. Eye contact often sent shivers up and down Caleb’s spine. He avoided it as often as he could. Even still, he caught Eudwulf’s in that moment. Wulf’s eyes were green, dark, dark green, almost brown. Looking into Wulf’s eyes wasn’t much different from looking into the depths of a mug of Caduceus’ green tea. Green tea in a white mug, left alone of a counter long enough to be lukewarm and perfectly still, the leaves settling in the bottom in a spiral pattern. Tea that, had it not been for the smallest dash of milk, would be completely transparent. 

As much as Caleb hated holding someone’s eyes with his own, it was strenuous, the effort it took for him to look away. 

Caleb had held onto a deep, tearing sensation of hatred in his chest for years. He had clumped Eudwulf and Astrid in with Ikathon, labeled them fanatics, cultists, blind followers, conspirators in haunting him. But now, looking into those nearly translucent green eyes, Caleb couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t help the pull of his heart, the instinct that he’d had for so long. He had to keep things from Ikaton and from Astrid, but to Eudwulf, to Wulf he was open. To Wulf he was clear. 

And he believed him. As much as he wanted to hate him, to burn him to nothing with no remorse, to turn his back while Nott tore him to pieces, he believed him. Mostly. Almost.

He set a hand on Nott’s shoulder, a silent request for her to stand down. 

“You listen to me,” Nott ordered, her bright yellow eyes burning into Wulf. “This arrow will stay in this bow, drawn and ready. And it is only by my good graces that it is kept back. But the moment that you do anything to hurt my boy, it will be made drunk in your blood. Do you understand?” Caleb’s heart seized at her words. Wulf nodded. 

Yasha helped Eudwulf stand, Caduceus let his magic swirl around him but didn’t touch him, didn’t caress a shoulder, kiss a face, none of the careful, familiar touches that he handed out to most people. None of that for Eudwulf, mostly because he knew, at least in part, what the Eudwulf had done to Caleb. He hadn’t shared everything, but Clay knew enough. He knew enough to act coldly to him. Nott patted his knee, her crossbow still in her hand. Caleb wanted to scoop her up in his arms and spin her around for what she had said, but he wouldn’t in front of Wulf. He couldn’t allow himself to be vulnerable in front of him. Not just yet. 

Fjord was waiting inside the shop, trying to look casual but obviously ready to jump if he was asked to. He ran his eyes over Wulf and looked to Caduceus for explanation. 

Caleb had Yasha stay with Wulf while he made his way into the back of the shop. Caduceus joined him, leaving Fjord and Nott as back up. Clay said nothing, didn’t offer any kind words or gentle touches of support. Maybe it was because he knew that Caleb didn’t need that right now. Maybe he could tell just what Caleb’s soul burned for. Maybe he knew that he couldn’t provide that. 

Molly was sitting on Jester’s desk, eating one of the lemon squares that she had made the day before and chatting with her. Caleb was sure that they were talking about the argument that they had had. He couldn’t blame Molly, seeking out Jester’s advice. For someone so separated from the world, Jester gave wonderful advice. Caleb supposed that her soul was older than she was. 

Molly dragged his eyes across the room slowly, passively, painting on a mask of indifference. Molly was smart and pretty and sharp, but he had such a capacity to cut Caleb open with a movement, a sideways glance, a ignorance of not himself in his totality, but the deeper part of him, the essence of him that Molly knew was there. It hurt more for Molly to disregard that part of him than to ignore him all together. Molly was wonderful and beautiful and he was mean. He was petty. He was vicious. 

Caleb remembered that cup of tea they had shared in Jester’s apartment, what Molly had told him. 

“ _ I eat men like air,”  _ Molly had said. Plath rolled off his tongue like they were his own words. 

And then Molly seemed to see him, to see that look in his eyes, see how hallow he was. He could see the cracks in him, and the mask seemed to slip away. No more cold, no more cutting, Molly was on his feet, moving into Caleb’s space tentatively, waiting for permission to approach. Long fingers trailed against his jaw line. Caleb almost melted. 

“What’s wrong?” Molly asked, searching Caleb for injury or ailment. “What’s wrong, my love?” 

“I need to get Beau.” Caleb said. Molly nodded, confused, but he understood the urgency more than the details of it. Caduceus, wonderful Caduceus, stopped Jester’s questions before they came. Molly stitched their fingers together, gently lead him. 

Caleb hadn’t spoken to Beauregard since their capital “C” Conversation. He felt like an open nerve to her, vulnerable to any attack she might take against him. As far as he could tell, she hadn’t told anyone. Jester, Fjord, and Yasha didn’t seem to know anything more than he’d been willing to tell them. Beau was right. She could keep a secret. 

He barely had to say anything to her when she opened the door, barely had to open his mouth before she seemed to know. 

“Eudwulf,” Caleb said, gripping Molly’s hand tightly with his own, “he is here.” Beau’s face fell into something measured, steady. 

“Is he a threat?” She asked, ducking into her room to retrieve her staff. 

“I don’t know.” Caleb said. 

“Then we treat him like he is.” She moved past Caleb, making her way to the front. “Is there anywhere we can keep him, somewhere removed from us and safe?” Caleb nodded and retrieved the ring of keys from his pocket. “Caleb,” Beau stopped, placed a hand on his shoulder, “don’t give anything away. Don’t give him anything that he could use against you. You’ve got no weaknesses when you’re near him, do you understand?” 

Caleb untangled his fingers from Molly’s. 

Wulf was standing beside Yasha, his eyes glassy and stuck on her. He looked at her as though she had a gun to his head, and knowing Yasha, the hand on his shoulder was most likely an equivalent. Her jaw was set, her intention was clear. She nodded as Caleb entered, a type of respectful gesture that she extended to him. He wasn’t comfortable with that, the familiar, militaristic authority that she associated with him. He wasn’t sure how to put into words how much that made his skin crawl, being treated like a superior, being trusted with decisions. He was good at strategy, but he also recognized his innate tendency to fuck up everything around him. He didn’t know how to ask her not to just yet. Caleb took Wulf’s bicep in his hand and led him through the back of the shop.

Caleb had made the small, iron lined room branching off of the offices in an attempt to contain a ghost. It hadn’t gone exactly as he had planned and they had had a malicious spirit roaming Modern Literature for a few months before he was able to expel it, but he’d decided not to get rid of the room. He had a feeling that he might find a use for it someday. He took a skeleton key off of his ring and let his hand begin to glow. He lit the key up with golden energy and unlocked the door. It was exactly as he had left it, a spacious room lined with iron, not necessarily suited for a living person to take up residence, but only what Caleb was willing to provide. He nodded and motioned for Wulf to go inside. As Caleb stepped in after him, Yasha followed dutifully, closing the door behind her and crossing her arms. She leaned back against the door, staring down at Wulf with the threat of action. 

“Your friend,” Wulf said, staring up at Yasha but not speaking to her directly, “she reeks of a curse.” An unfortunate habit that Caleb himself had had to unlearn, the instinct to talk down to, the instinct to assume, especially when someone looked like Yasha. Ikathon wasn’t the only reason that Caleb had abandoned much of his faith’s teachings. Caleb quirked his brow and didn’t look back to Yasha. Like Beau had said, he couldn’t show weakness here. 

“So you ran?” Caleb asked. “Why?”

“They were planning to hurt you.” Wulf said. His eyes were digging into Caleb’s desperately searching for eye contact. “I didn’t want them to.” Caleb bobbed his head. 

“I know when you are lying to me.” He said. Wulf dropped his gaze, squeezed his eyes shut. 

“I’m not-“

“ _ Do not lie to me!”  _ All of the anger that had been building in his chest seemed to explode, crackling through his veins like fire, like acid. Yasha shifted behind him, didn’t step forward or move to stop him, just reminded him that she was there. “Do not lie to me. Why did you run? What did he threaten you with?” Wulf shook his head, buried his face in his hands. His shoulders shook with shame. 

“He found out what I did.” He sobbed. Caleb’s chest seized with discomfort. “He found out what I did to you.” He furrowed his brow and took a step back, closer to Yasha. 

“What did you do?” His voice was barely a whisper. 

“I saved you.” Wulf said. His hands shaking over his face. “He was going to kill you but I saved you.” 

“What do you mean?” He could hear his heart hammering in his chest. Yasha’s hand met the small of his back, a gesture he recognized as sympathy, support, something she extended to Molly frequently. 

“Your parents,” Wulf seemed to get a hold of himself, whipped his face, but didn’t look up from the ground, “Astrid told him and he wanted to kill you. Before he could, I cast a curse on you, I took away your mind, your gift, made sure that you weren’t a threat. From there it was easy to convince him that it would be far more satisfying to watch you rot than to kill you quickly. He found out what I had done and he attacked me. I barely escaped alive.” Eudwulf’s eyes were haunted, empty things. 

Caleb’s chest felt raw. He clenched his jaw, willed his tears away. He stepped forward, reached into his pockets and retrieved a bit of sulfur in the palm of his hand and a small amethyst stone. He spit onto his palm, took Wulf’s wrists into his hands, and let his magic go. It swirled around them, twisting the components into shackles, blocking off Wulf’s magic, burning Caleb’s skin. He managed to hide his stumble. 

“You are useful to me for the moment. You have information that I need.” Caleb’s voice was schooled in indifference. “But know that the moment that you give me a reason to, I will kill you without remorse.” Wulf’s eyes met his in that moment, forest green, hallow, tired. Wulf didn’t believe him. Maybe it was lingering affection, maybe it was that Wulf had seen him crack before, but something in his eyes didn’t think Caleb could do that. 

“You look so like him.” 

Caleb shut the door behind him and pressed the key into Yasha’s hand. Beau was beside him in a moment, calm and collected. She accompanied him back to his room, more like a prison detail than a bodyguard. 

“Are you okay?” She asked. 

“No.” Caleb said. She nodded. 

“No Vader, though?” She asked. 

“No.” Caleb said. She nodded. She let him go, shut the door behind her. 

Caleb managed to make it to his bathroom before he was sick. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me at gayshitiguess on tumblr.


	9. In Ruins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bathroom floors, braids, vegitarian soup, Danish proverbs, and curses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOOOO buddy, this one is rough. Once again, this one is not betaed because I’m the absolute worst and just finished writing it. I swear that I’m going to get ahead in the next few weeks. I’m thinking that I have about five chapters left of this one including the epilogue, so we’re in the home stretch. Quick warning, this chapter has some heavy stuff in it, including some thoughts that lean towards suicidal in the first few paragraphs. There is also some gaslighting and control, so it’s a bit of a rough chapter. Please be safe if any of this is bad for you. 
> 
> I hope to have another chapter for you guys by next week since we’re getting into the action. I want to finish this story before February, since I plan to take all of February off. 
> 
> If you guys have any one shot requests, either in this universe, in the canon, or in any other au, shoot me a comment or an ask/message on my tumblr (gayshitguess) and I might write it during my break!! A note, when I take breaks, it’s from this universe so that I can plan and take my time making sure that it’s a cohesive and well thought out plot, not from writing itself. I love writing and I definitely want to write during the time that I’m taking off from From the Bell Jar. 
> 
> Feel free to leave me a comment!! I love getting comments, they are fuel!! Also, fee free to drop me an ask or a message on Tumblr at gayshitiguess if you want to!! I love hearing from you guys and what you think/want to know about this au and others!! 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading and enjoy!!

The bathroom tiles were cool against his cheek and Caleb tried to breathe through his nausea. His stomach was empty but he still felt that head spinning, heart dropping pit in his stomach. The floor felt cool, hard, safe. He was grounded, quite literally, on the white linoleum floor. He heard his door open, but he didn’t move. He knew that it had to either be Nott, who could have picked his lock, or Molly, who had his spare key. He didn’t particularly mind either of them seeing him like this. He felt rather useless at the moment. He felt rather useless most of the time. He might as well stay right there, splayed out on his stomach on the bathroom floor, his mouth bitter with the taste of bile. If he looked so much like Ikathon, he might as well lock himself away and never leave again. He might as well spare the world another Trent Ikathon. He might as well spare the world his fucking filth if he was such a psychopath. 

A hand met his back, long, artificial nails trailing shivers up his spine. 

“Oh,  _ Quierdo,”  _ Molly’s voice rung deep in his chest. Caleb didn’t open his eyes, didn’t move, just let Molly trail his fingers up and down his back, sweet words spilling from his lips. Caleb loved those lips. A warm hand came to Caleb’s forehead. “You don’t have a fever.” Molly murmured. “You’re actually pretty cold.” Molly brushed Caleb’s hair out of his face, gently carding his fingers through his curls. “Come on, babe, let’s get you off the floor.” Molly’s hands came to his shoulders, gently helped him sit up. Caleb’s face met with Molly’s shoulder, the clean smell of his cologne, the soft material of his button up. “I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you.” Molly murmured into his hair. Molly’s arms snaked around his waist, lifted him up and onto his unsteady feet. His hand lingers on Caleb’s hip as he brushed his teeth, drank a cup of water, avoided his face in the mirror. “Let’s lie down for a sec, yeah?” Caleb nodded and let himself be led to his bed, big, soft, much more comfortable than the bathroom floor. He all but curled into the fetal position, drifting between sleep and wake. Molly laid beside him, turned to look at him. It was only the look in those bright brown eyes that kept Caleb from drifting off. 

“I’m sorry,” Caleb said, his eyes tracing the peacock feathers on Molly’s cheek. Molly smiled a little, not the big, toothy, dazzling smile that he usually did. This one was soft, sweet, reserved for only the quietest of moments. Foreheads pressed together, hands intertwined, lips meeting. That smile didn’t come out unless Molly felt contented, at peace. Caleb loved those lips. He loved that smile. 

“I’m sorry too.” He said. “About the fight. I mean, I’m sorry that we fought. I didn’t mean to start something. I still think that I’m right, and yes, it's not really my business what you do with your past except that I’m part of your life and I hope, with your permission to be a part of it for a good long while. If I’m a part of it, then I only think its fair that I get a say. So I won’t apologize for that, but I will apologize for yelling and for starting a fight-“ 

“Molly,” Caleb interrupted, “you’re right.” Molly stopped mid sentence and searched Caleb’s face. He didn’t say anything, so Caleb pick up. “I can’t run from this. Eudwulf is proof enough. I have others to think about now. Not just Nott, not just Fjord or Clay. But you and Beau and Jester and Yasha. I have spent a year with you people and I care about you. I care about the group that we’ve built. I have invested time and energy into you people and I intend to see that through.” Molly gave him a look, a knowing one, seeing straight through his bullshit. “I care about you.”  _ I love you,  _ he wanted to say. He wanted to scream it at the top of his lungs but his gut clenched and he thought he might be sick again when he thought about it. Molly’s smile returned, the soft one, the sweet one. 

“I care about you too.” He brushed a hand through Caleb’s hair before he shifted, taking Caleb’s head in his lap. Long, sharp fingers brushed through his hair and started collecting strands. Caleb closed his eyes and focused on the feelings of it. “And baby, whatever you decide to do, whatever you need us to do, you know that we all have your back. We know that this is dangerous. We know that this is life and death. But you faced down a demon for me. We would all do the same for you in a heartbeat. We’ll back your play, whatever that is.” Caleb hummed. 

“Even Beau?” He asked. Molly laughed, a deep rumble in his stomach. 

“Especially Beau.” He said. “She acts all tough and distant but I’m fairly certain that she has a soft spot for all of us. She’s a sap that one, I just know it.” Molly’s fingers slowly collected Caleb’s hair into braids, one on the top of his head and one of either side, pulling the usually wild, in the way curls out of his face. Caleb felt cleaner, more open, he could feel the air on his forehead and cheeks. It was a nice feeling. 

“I feel guilty.” Caleb said. Molly hummed and tied off a braid. 

“What about?” He asked. 

“Wulf. I an conflicted. I know that it most likely would have been safer just to kill him, but I...” Caleb couldn’t find it in himself to finish. 

“You still care about him.” Molly did it for him. The guilt flared up in his chest again. 

“I don’t want to.” He said, “I know that that is dangerous, but I can’t help it. I worry that that affection will cloud my judgement, and that it might extend to Astrid as well, and that it might hurt you.” Molly chuckled softly under his breath. 

“Darling, I am not a jealous person,” he said, pressing a kiss to Caleb’s temple, “your heart will want what it wants and it can’t be stopped. I encourage people to seek out what they desire, not deny themselves. I’ve always encouraged you to chase your pleasure.” Caleb could hear the smirk in his voice. He could feel his face turn red with Molly’s hot breathe at his ear. “And besides,” Molly withdrew, his playfulness going with him, “you are having very, very bad emotions triggered left and right, it's only natural that the few good ones that you felt at that time would come along with them. I don’t blame you for it at all.” Caleb felt a bit of the guilt lifted. He opened his eyes, looked up at Molly as he ran his hands over the braids. “Yasha could do them better, but I gave it my best shot.” Molly said, examining his work. Caleb sat up, kissed Molly’s jaw as he went. 

“I should do some work.” He said, rubbing at his eyes. He wondered where he had left his glasses. He didn’t particularly need them, he could fix his eyesight for an hour at a time with a glamor, but the familiar weight of his reading glasses on his nose focused him. 

“You should get some rest.” Molly said, gently massaging the back of his neck. “And eat something.” Caleb nodded, closed his eyes. Let the feeling of Molly’s skin on his hold him in his spot. 

“I  _ need  _ to work.” He corrected. Molly eyed him for a moment and nodded, seeming to understand the intonation of his statement. 

“Okay.” He said. “Okay, but you’re still going to eat something. And have some tea.” Caleb smiled, something shy and broken, but still there. Molly kissed it off his face. 

From his spot at his desk, Caleb could hear Molly, Caduceus, and Nott talking in quiet tones in the kitchen. He was doing his very best to ignore it, plugging in Molly’s headphones into his iPad to listen to one of Molly’s many playlists. He wasn’t entirely successful. Every thirty seconds or so, he would pull out his earbud to see if he could hear what they were saying clearly. He would give up and turn back to his work and music. 

This playlist was loud, heavy on the drums and bass. Marc Almond screamed in his ear about being called Jacky. About being for only an hour, for an hour every day, cute in a stupid ass way. This song so totally reminded Caleb of Molly that he had to take his earbuds out and listen to his voice, muffled by the door between them, thick with worry. Caleb hated that, the sound of Molly’s voice when he was worried. He hated making Molly something that he was not. The way that he had explained it, Lucien was the worrier, Mollymauk was quiet the opposite. While Molly had assured him that the two sides of his totality had reconciled, it was clear when one part of him was more prevalent. It wasn’t like he had a split personality, he was one whole person, there was just version of him that existed before and one that existed after and one sum of the two wholes that existed now. Still, it was easier to classify those two parts by their names. 

Molly wouldn’t worry. It was Lucien who fretted over him for days, who spent hours inspecting Caleb after a fight, who insisted that he went to sleep at a reasonable hour and made him messy peanut butter and honey sandwiches when he hadn’t eaten all day. It was Lucien who would listen closely to his problems and devise the most wonderful solutions. Molly would stay awake with him, collapse on the floor of Fjord’s van in a pile of blood and bruises. Molly would ignore food when he could focus his energies on Caleb, when he could force him out and into loud pubs, when he could attend underground shows in dingy venues. Molly would listen too, just as long and just as naturally, but he would offer support, offer something emotional. 

Both of those sides were necessary to make one whole. Both of those sides came together in a messy, uneven fashion to from someone just as messy and uneven and beautiful as either of his sides. 

It was Nott who eventually brought him food. She had a large bowl of soup in one hand and his mosaic mug full of steaming tea in the other. She set them down before she climbed up onto the chair next to him, crossing her arms and looking between the food and him. Caleb sighed and picked up the bowl. 

It was good, a new recipe, he could tell. Caduceus had, upon truly getting a grasp on human food and resources, become a vegetarian. Plant life was much more nutritious and protein-prone in the Feywilde, and when Caduceus first came to LA and tried to subsist off of only lettuce and zucchini, he had promptly discovered how difficult that was. He was excited, though, to finally get a handle on how to match certain foods together to make it healthy. With this shift, they had all become vegetarians, since none of them knew exactly how to cook. They couldn’t subsist off of Jester’s baking alone, and there was little complaint. Clay was a good enough cook that anything would have tasted better than the ramen and In and Out ever could. 

Nott was quiet while he ate, observing him silently as she fiddled with the button on his sweater. It was close to falling off already and she tugged on it until the thread broke. She tucked it into her pocket, reached into her hair and produced a thin needle and thread. She sewed a small, golden button that didn’t match the others in its place. She patted his chest where it sat. 

“How are you?” She asked once his bowl was empty. Caleb clutched his mug in his hands. He sighed and ran a hand over his braids.

“I’m holding on.” He said. Nott patted his knee. 

“I know that this is very difficult for you, and there’s no shame in being overwhelmed.” She was dancing around him, carefully approaching the problem. He was quiet for a very long moment, letting the buzzing panic in his chest fester until it was a great weight, choking out his breathe. He fought to tears from falling. 

“What should I do?” Caleb asked, pushing his glasses up to the top of his head. His voice was broken and lost when it came out. Nott made a sound a kind to desperation or pain and took his hand in hers, desperately trying to comfort him. “What do I do?” 

“Oh Caleb,” Nott said, clasping his hand in both of hers, “oh, my boy.” He was crying, just a little, but Nott tugging him down to rest his head on her shoulder made him cry much harder. He hadn’t realized how much he was holding up inside of him, how much pressure had built in his chest. Nott wrapped her arms around his shoulders as much she could and let him cry. “Caleb, I can’t tell you what to do.” She said. Caleb sagged a little at that. He had so hoped that she could. “You have to decide for yourself. If you want to run, I will run with you. No question. But if you want to face this, then I will face it. I can’t decide what for you, though.” Nott squeezed him tightly in her arms. 

“I have to fight.” Caleb said. “I can’t run. He’ll just find me again. And he’ll hurt you. And Molly. And everyone.” Nott hummed and released him from her iron hold. 

“I think that’s the right thing to do.” She whispered. She wiped the tears from Caleb’s face. “It’s going to be okay.” Caleb nodded, even if he didn’t quite believe her. 

“Thank you for what you said to Wulf.” He said. Nott smiled. 

“I meant it too.” She reached behind her heavy hoodie and retrieved the small crossbow from her belt. The arrow was still notched in its place. “I can’t wait to fucking kill him.” 

“I’m not sure if that’s going to be necessary yet.” Caleb replied. “I believe that he ran from Ikathon, I just don’t know if he’s got ulterior motives.” 

“Everyone has ulterior motives.” Nott reminded him. 

“The question is if those motives align with ours in a constructive way.” Caleb said. Nott nodded, big eyes flickering as she put some ideas together. Caleb was quiet, let the thoughts float. Nott’s hand didn’t leave his. 

“I should work some more.” Caleb had written up half of his notes and he needed to finish them. Nott nodded, patted Caleb’s hand once more before she let him go. She took his bowl as she went and kissed his knee as she passed. Caleb caught a glimpse of Molly and Caduceus talking intensely over the kitchen table. He turned back to his notes and tried to ignore the fact that Nott was going back to report to the troops. He had promised Molly that he would look into the his bloody eye problem and so he had. He finished out the sentence he had been writing in clipped, clean handwriting and read back over his notes. 

_ “Bloodhunter magic is vague and sometimes difficult to pin down. Not only is the nature of this magic tied to the individual (their particular set of skills, the situation of their Deal, the contents of their bloodline,) but also to the deity or demon from whom the magic, in part, originates. A bloodhunter who gets their magic from something of divine blood will not have the same range of ability as one who gets their magic from fiendish, nor one with divine or fiendish blood in their family already. The nature of deals also plays into the process. Divine deities tend to grant a bloodline that has served their purposes the magic as a gift and it has been theorized that this gift giving along with it's fiendish counterparts has bled down family trees to make earthy magic. Fiendish deities and demons lean towards punishment, taking the soul of a member of a bloodline as payment for the actions of another. Thus, their magics reflect. Divine magic leans towards healing, fiendish towards hurting. It is not, as best I can find, not unheard of to heal using fiendish bloodhunting, but it is unusual. Bloodhunter magic is extremely unique. It is weaker than the magic wielded by the Fey or by mages, but it is also extremely versatile. With the right amount of focus, a bloodhunter can do virtually anything on a small scale.  _

_ Conjecture; upon seeing both myself and Yasha hurt, with no way to affect the situation with your normal array of magics, you panicked. Your magic responded to the panic, provided a solution, and popped blood vessels required for the ritual. It is, at the moment, not something to be concerned with. If the situation progresses or changes, further inquiry will be made.”  _

He nodded and gathered his notes and sources into a minimal folder, wrote ‘ _ Mollymauk’  _ onto the tab, and placed it neatly on his desk. 

Yasha was still outside of the room, arms crossed, eyes forward, like she was guarding it. There was no need, the room was effectively sealed, but Yasha didn’t seem to believe it. Caleb walked over, popped in his back, and settled against the wall next to Yasha. 

“Molly braided your hair.” She said, poking one of them where it had come loose. Caleb nodded and tugged tightly on the end of one. Yasha had countless braids in her hair, small ones, thick ones, ones that ran over her scalp and ones that hid under the length of her hair. She had pieces of cloth braided in, leather strips, shinning beads, and pieces of jewelry. She seemed to remember something and reached behind her ear, tugging a small clump of hair and beginning to braid it. It was a complicated pattern, four strands wrapping around each other, nothing like the easy, Dutch braids that his mother had taught him how to do. Easy, Dutch braids, golden hair wrapped around his fingers, Astrid humming softly as he wrangled her too-long hair back. 

He forgot, sometimes, that he had good memories of her, too. 

“What do they mean?” Caleb asked. Yasha stilled in her movements for only a moment to give him a quizzical look. “I only mean that they seem to represent something to you.” He looked away, offering her an out from the conversation. 

“In my culture,” Yasha said, her accent which usually only seemed to clip her tones, spread, wrapped it's way around his words, “they represent a warrior. It isn’t something that hasn’t been prevalent since the days of the Vikings, but Denmark has a rich culture of warriors. I happened to fall into that culture. I earned them. Each one is blood I spill from myself or from others. Each is a battle won.” Caleb wracked his brain for knowledge of Danish culture. 

“You must be of high station.” He said. 

“I was not when I left.” She finished her braid and tied it off, the curl of her hair holding it. “I cut it all off when I disgraced my right to have it. I have earned this. Battle by battle.” Caleb nodded, tugged at his own braids until they fell out. 

“I have not.” He explained. Yasha seemed to understand. 

“ _ Bange hjarte vandt aldrig fager mō.”  _ She said under her breathe. 

“He is afraid of much more than that.” Caleb cast his eye on Yasha, took note of the way she stood, the gentle up and down of her breathe. 

Something was wrong. He couldn’t put a word to it, but something about her was off. 

He remembered what Eudwulf said, that she stank of curse. Caleb tugged the necklace around his neck off and held it up to Yasha, just close enough to enter her aura. 

The very air around her seemed to recoil. Yasha took a step back, eyed the thing like it was a knife set on her back. Her eyes filled with something akin to pain, somewhere stuck between confusion and betrayal. 

“Yasha please stay very still.” Caleb could barely breathe. “I am so sorry, I believe that you are cursed.” Yasha’s eyes met his, an uncomfortable, icy stare, blue and purple. 

Yasha blinked and her eyes seemed to shift, that cold stare covered in a sheen of anger. She gritted her teeth, bared her molars against each other like an animal. Before he could gather the energy in his hand, Yasha was on him, pinning him to the ground. Her knee dug into his chest, knocking the air out of him and extinguishing the possibility of any sort of cry from help. Caleb tried to draw air into his lungs but its wouldn’t come. He willed magic into his hands, but it sputtered, as caught off guard as he was. Yasha gripped her hands around his neck and lifted his head. For a moment, he thought that maybe she was simply going to pass a message along, whisper something in his ear. In a swift motion, Yasha slammed his head back down into the iron floor. 

His vision was overtaken with darkness, his magic surged and panicked inside of him but it had nowhere to go, so it burned beneath his skin. Yasha stood, took the key that he had put into her hand and, swirling with black, smoky magic, opened the door to Eudwulf’s cage. Amethyst shackles cracked under her strength. Caleb was limp, dead weight as she picked him up and threw him over her shoulder. 

Caleb was familiar with the sound of Molly’s blades tearing through his skin. He was familiar with the way that Molly’s voice sounded when he stood on the edge of a battlefield. Something akin to hope flared in his chest when he heard those two things. 

“Put him down, Yasha.” Molly sounded calm, collected, but Caleb knew that he was brimming with confusion and fear. He wanted to explain it, to tell him that it wasn’t Yasha at all. But he was teetering on the edge of unconsciousness, and he couldn’t make his mouth work. Caleb just caught sight of Molly as Yasha began to leave the room, barely a look at him, standing tall with his chest sliced open under his nice button up. He just caught sight of him as Eudwulf’s magic cut through the air and slammed into his chest. 

The darkness in the edges of his vision began to overtake it. He could see Molly, staggering backwards, clutching at his swords as he tried to stand against Wulf. He saw how easy it was to disarm him, graceful weapons clanging on the iron floor. He saw how Wulf’s magic swirled around Molly and brought him to his knees. He saw Wulf’s translucent eyes flashed towards him, something between determination and regret. Something broke in those eyes when they met Caleb’s, something fundamental changed in them. He looked from Caleb to Molly, hand still alight with magic, and he made a decision. Magic swirled around Molly and lifted him up, carried him along behind Wulf. 

Caleb knew that he was heading towards his death, that Molly was likely following him, and that this was a result of his own carelessness, but he let his vision cloud over. Molly was alive, for now. At the very least, he knew that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me on tumblr at gayshitiguess.


	10. Glass and Bone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ugly carpet, chains, the power was inside of him all along, severed fingers, and the delicate nature of necks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y’all, be warned; this chapter gets heavy. Look out for gaslighting, past abuse, graphic depictions of violence, blood, and some pretty nasty body horror. This one,,, this one is rough. Please, PLEASE be safe. I promise that the next story won’t be so triggering. 
> 
> Also, I feel the need to remind you guys that EVERYBODY WILL BE FINE AT THE END OF THS!!!! EVERYBODY LIVES!!! I PROMISE!!!! THERE IS A HAPPY ENDING HERE SOMEWHERE!!!!! 
> 
> I’m sorry.

Caleb woke up with the taste of blood on his teeth  and a pit in his chest where his magic should sit. He was floating a bit, drifting between awake and unconscious; Schrodinger’s Concussion Victim. He groaned, felt the vibrations bounce around his painfully empty rib cage, concerned in a distant, worry-about-that-in-a-moment way. He could feel something heavy and sharp digging into his wrists where they were pinned behind him. Something was kicking at his foot, bouncing it against the floor. 

His vision cleared up slowly, but as soon as he could see bleary, fuzzed shapes and colors, he knew that Molly was in front of him. He could see the bright purple of his hair, the dark color of his button up. He blinked several times, crossed his eyes so that they would focus, steadied on the sticky, drying blood on Molly’s chest. 

“You with me, babe?” Molly whispered, leaning as far forward as his bonds would allow. Caleb managed to hum and watched the tension bleed away from Molly’s features. The spot where Wulf’s magic had connected with him was burned, blurring the lines of the sun that wrapped around Molly’s chest. Caleb knew that he should be more worried about the actual injury, but he also knew that Molly would be more upset about the damage than the scar. Caleb cast his eyes around the room they were in. 

The carpet was a complicated, ugly, green and purple pattern under his feet. The chair he was on was brightly colored but uncomfortable. The walls were paneled wood, lined with a faux-gold rail that wrapped around the center of the room like a belt. There was a machine in the corner that was once lit up and loud, but had died and laid in muted neons against the wall. Yasha was near it, chained not to a chair like he was, but to a radiator that was protruding from the wall, heavy metal chains hanging around her, a gag in her mouth, her chin tucked into her chest. From what he could tell, she was unconscious, breathing shallowly. He couldn’t blame her. The kind of curse she had on her drained a person. It was meant to take over, to steal control of the body and lock the mind away, leaving the person conscious of their actions but unable to affect them. Not everybody fought it, some people would let themselves be tucked away, close their eyes to what was being done to them. That’s what he had done the one time that he had been under it. Caleb doubted that Yasha was that kind of person. 

Molly caught his attention again, wriggling his shoulders in a way that Caleb wasn’t sure was safe. 

“Hey,” he said, conversational despite their situation, “do you know what I just remembered? I did a lot of archery when I was younger. It was how I got my aggression out when I was an angsty teenager. And hey, I kept that shit up when I went to military school. I haven’t done it in a few years, but do you know what that means?” Caleb shook his head. “The hand that I used to draw has been trained for years to be very elastic, which means that when I do this-“ Caleb heard a somewhat gut-churning pop. Molly flinched but kept moving, didn't allow for a moment of pause. “-I don’t break my thumb, I just dislocate it long enough to do this!” Molly struggled for a moment longer before he pulled his hands out from behind him, one still surrounded by rope, the other’s thumb hanging grossly limp against the palm. Caleb screwed his face up. Molly seemed to realize and he popped his thumb back in place. “Yeah, this was a cool idea, but damn, that smarts.” 

Molly stood on shaky feet and took Caleb’s face in his hands, inspecting his eyes and the sore spot on the back of his head. Caleb could feel the hair that was matted with dried blood near the nape of his neck. Molly seemed to be fighting the instinct to kiss him. 

“Okay, let’s look at these things and see what we can do.” Molly trailed his fingers across what Caleb could only assume was amethyst on his wrists. Caleb had never had his magic blocked before, but it was an unsettling feeling. Like missing a limb. 

“Get Yasha first, she can break them.” Caleb spoke, and even though he hadn’t been screaming, his throat was raw and bloody. 

“She might bash  _ my  _ head in too.” Molly mumbled. His voice was thick with fear and betrayal. 

“It was a curse,” Caleb said, “that wasn’t her, she was made to do it.” Molly’s hands stilled for a moment against his wrists. 

“Do we know how long that kind of thing lasts?” Molly asked. 

“No,” Caleb said, relishing the feeling of Molly’s skin against his. It was a small comfort, but it was a comfort nonetheless. “But she wouldn’t be chained up if they could still use her.” Molly sighed and made his way over to Yasha and kneeled in front of her. He tucked her hair behind her shoulder and tugged on the gag. 

“Come on,  _ mo ghrá, múscail. Dúisigh.” Not Spanish _ , Caleb thought. Molly spoke a lot more languages than he thought he did, and every once in a while, he would slip into them without noticing. A side effect of Lucien being somewhat of a genius and speaking several languages. Urdu and Spanish came from his family, his grandparents being native to Puerto Rico and Pakistan, and a few others that he couldn’t quite explain. From Caleb’s count, he spoke English, Spanish, Arabic, Urdu, and some kind of demonic Infernal that Caleb couldn’t recognize. This, he thought, was Gaelic. A new one, and a strange one, but it sounded pretty on his tongue. Yasha stirred slightly as he patted her cheeks, tugged on the chains and leaned into Molly’s touch. 

“Careful,” Caleb said, “we don’t know the lasting effects. She could be very confused.” Molly nodded and scooted backwards, but kept his hand outstretched, brushing against Yasha’s restrained arm. She blinked up at Molly a bit at a time, her eyes seeming lost and empty for a moment before they cleared up, cold and sad and sharp. 

“Molly,” She breathed. Molly’s back was to Caleb, but he could almost feel the smile that he plastered on. 

“Hey,  _ Corazòn _ ,” he whispered, “hey, there you are.” Yasha furrowed her brow and scrunched her eyes closed as though she was trying to properly wake up. For a moment, she was distracted and dazed, and then her eyes seemed to focus. A horrible realization dawned on her. 

“Caleb,” She wheezed and struggled against her chains. 

“I’m here, Yasha,” Caleb called from his chair, “I’m alright.” 

“I’m sorry,” Yasha said. Molly began to tug on her chains, trying to find the lock. 

“There’s no need,” Caleb interrupted, “you were cursed and it was my fault for not checking.” Yasha shook her head. 

“I hurt you,” she said, she sounded haunted, as missing somewhere else as Caleb had been for the past week. 

“I am fine.” Caleb lied, the pound of his heart in his skull reminding him of it. “I understand that this was distressing, but we can deal with it when we are safe.” Yasha looked up at him with that look of authority respected, and even though he hated it most days, it was useful today. She recognized that he could take charge, so he would. 

“This chain is solid.” Molly interrupted. “I can’t break it.” If Caleb was free, he could snap it in a moment, but he was still restrained, shards of amethyst still digging into the skin of his wrists. Molly took the chains in either hand and pulled anyway, as though the power of his will alone could make the thing rust and fall away. 

And then, Caleb thought, that the power of his will really could do that. 

“Mollymauk,” Caleb said, “close your eyes.” Molly didn’t look away from his task. 

“Babe, I love you, but this really isn’t the time.” That was, Caleb realized, the first time that Molly had said that to him. He pushed it into the back of his mind. 

“Your magic is more versatile than you realize. If you can focus your energy you might be able to break it.” Molly’s hands stilled and he took a few deep breaths. 

“What do I do?” He asked. 

“Close your eyes,” Caleb instructed, coaching Molly the way that Gilmore had coached him, “put your hands on the chain. Focus on the effect that you desire. Focus on what you want your energy to do. Magic only does one thing, really, and that is affect change. Focus on what you want that change to be.” 

“I want the chain to change from whole to broken.” Molly’s voice was soft, sharp. 

“Focus. You have the power inside of you. It is yours to use. You control it. Tell it what to change.” 

“Break the chain,” Molly said, “break the chain.” There was a thick moment of silence. The air began to smell of iron. The piercing taste of lightning danced on his tongue. Molly cursed and shot back as the chain snapped, clattering to the ground. When Molly looked back at him, his left eye was clouded with blood and his smile split his face in half.

There was something so hauntingly beautiful about Molly covered in blood. There was something so terrifying and so wonderful about the drop of it curving around his jaw. 

“Wonderful Mollymauk.” Caleb couldn’t tell if it was a praise or a term of endearment. 

Molly began to stand, to unfold his long legs from under him and help Yasha up, but he didn’t get the chance. Smoke wrapped around Molly’s legs and pinned them beneath him, snapped his hands together and behind his back before he could rake his nails across his chest and twist his blood into a blade. Caleb felt his blood freeze where it was and, as much as he wanted to scream or cry or pitch a fucking fit, he couldn’t. He was frozen to his spot not just by his bonds, but by his heart, sinking to the bottom of his shoes. The air smelled of fire and Caleb’s heart stopped. 

Molly struggled, screamed, cursed, spat out insults in demon-tongue until he was lifted onto his chair, pinned down by the smoke. His breath was becoming ragged, his teeth were stained with spit and blood and he was burning, burning, bursting with rage. Molly was like that, he was angry, he was loud, he didn’t turn his cheek against injustice or disrespect. Molly wouldn’t go softly into anything, wouldn’t go easily, wouldn’t let them take him alive. 

_ Rage, rage, against the dying of the light,  _ Caleb thought. That was what Molly did best, rage. He was feral and loud and awful and he wouldn’t go quietly. 

The door leading out of the room creaked open. Even, measured footsteps sounded against the awful shag carpet. Caleb held his breath. 

Father Ikathon looked thirteen feet tall standing over him. Father Ikathon looked ill. He looked old, frail, nothing like the man that Caleb had cowered from for years. Something was feeding off of him. Something was eating away at him from the inside. Ikathon flicked his wrist, squeezed his magic around Molly’s throat so that he couldn’t shout anymore, and pinned Yasha back against the radiator so that she couldn’t move. Caleb kept that breath in his chest and cast his eyes downward. 

“Good evening, Caleb.” His voice sounded like metal sawing through bone. “Let’s begin.” 

Caleb could still hear Molly struggling, the strangled sounds of his blocked breath. He dared to let his eyes trail up Molly’s form. He could see the muscles of his stomach spasming, trying so desperately hard to draw air. Molly’s eye was still clouded with blood, his other, brown, bright, wide with terror and burning with anger. It poured into Caleb’s, pleading, praying. 

“Father Ikathon,” Caleb muttered, his words leaving him in a gasp. “Father Ikathon, please, please, let him breathe.” A curling, nauseous smile crept onto Ikathon’s face. 

“So polite,” Ikathon muttered, “for someone so rude.” He raised his eyebrow and the smoke around Molly’s throat eased. Molly cough and spit and sucked air in as fast as he could. 

“You ugly motherfucker, lose the smoke show and I’ll show you how  _ rude _ I can be!” Ikathon took Molly’s chin in his hand and squeezed, forcing his line of sight. Ikathon wiped the blood from Molly’s cheek. 

“You associate with  _ Bloodhunters  _ now, Caleb?” Ikathon’s voice was coated with disdain. Disappointment. “And  _ fags,  _ nonetheless?” Molly bit down on his lip and spat his blood into Ikathon’s eye. Caleb’s couldn’t help the fear that gripped his heart. 

“I’m going to love tearing you to pieces,” Molly’s voice was soft, calm, seething with flames. 

“ _ Vater, bitte, bitte, Gnade. Gnade, bitte. Er weiß nicht, was er spricht!”  _ Ikathon released Molly’s face and turned on Caleb, clapping his hand across his face. Caleb’s head snapped to the side, his chapped lip split. He let out a whimper he wasn’t proud of. 

“Don’t you fucking touch him!” Molly screamed. There was a strangled cry from him and a frustrated growl, but Caleb didn’t look up to see what had happened. He knew that he was beginning to hyperventilate. A hand gripped at the hair at the back of his head, pulled it back to meet Ikathon’s eyes. Caleb felt fresh blood trickle down the back of his neck. 

Ikathon caught his eyes with his, half lidded and judging. He patted Caleb’s cheek softly with his other hand, stroking his thumb across his cheekbone. Caleb’s gut twisted when he realized how comforting that was. He couldn’t help that muscle memory, the instinct to trust, the built-in nature to lean in, to take what kindness he was offered. 

“Breathe.” Trent ordered. “Be calm.” Caleb couldn’t help but comply. His mind cleared. He started to formulate a plan. 

“Father Ikathon,” he gasped, leaning into his touch, “they are innocents. I have dragged them into this. Please, let them go.” Ikathon’s hand retracted. 

“I want you, Caleb.” He said, circling around his chair. Caleb met Mollymauk’s eye. 

“And so you will have.” He rushed to please. It scared him, how quickly he tried to follow orders. “I will stay, I will do whatever you want, but please, let them go.” Ikathon trailed his hand across Caleb’s shoulder as he approached Molly. To his credit, Molly didn’t look away from Caleb. He didn’t provoke action. He trusted Caleb. He realized what was happening. Molly was trusting that he had a plan, that he would get them out of this alive. Complete, blind faith was in his bloody eyes. And that scared Caleb more than Ikathon ever could. 

Ikathon caressed Molly’s cheek gently, familiarly. Molly recoiled, but his other hand came around to cup his jaw and keep his head forward. Standing behind Molly, his hands touching the face that Caleb loved so much, he looked taller than thirteen feet. He looked like the biggest thing in the world. 

Caleb saw Ikathon’s mistake before he did. Molly had sharp teeth. Caleb had learned this the hard way. He could still pinpoint the spot on his neck where Molly had been a bit too overzealous. Ikathon moved the forefinger of his right hand just a bit too close to Molly’s mouth. Not one to let an opportunity go to waste, Molly wrenched his face from Ikathon’s hold and bit his finger clean off. 

Ikathon stumbled back, crying out more in aggravation than pain, clamping down on the bloody stump where his finger should have been. With a flash of black magic, his hand was cauterized, but his finger was still gone, clutched between Molly’s teeth. He smiled with it on morbid display between his front teeth before he spat it at Ikathon, nailing him right in the face. 

Yasha let out a wild, bubbling laugh behind Molly. 

Ikathon shot his hand back and Yasha’s gag was replaced with smoke. He smiled, a desperate, feral thing. He took Molly’s face back in his hands. Something evil glinted in his eyes. One hand rested on the right side of Molly’s chin, the other over his left ear. Molly stiffened, struggled for a moment. Caleb watched the realization hit Molly. Fear, for just a moment, danced across his features. Then, they smoothed in a smile. That was an old hat, bluffing. Molly couldn’t sing or run a mile or climb too many ladders, but bluffing, that was something that Molly could do. 

“If you’re going to kill me, I’d be very sure, it hasn’t stuck yet.” Ikathon tapped his finger against Molly’s jaw. 

“I will be sure.” He whispered into Molly’s ear. Caleb watched as tears filled up Molly’s eyes despite himself. Ikathon’s magic swirled around his head. 

“Third time’s a charm.” He flashed Caleb a smile. Big, teary, toothy, fake. 

In one swift motion, Ikathon ripped Molly’s head to the left and snapped his neck. 

Caleb’s scream caught in his throat. He screwed his eyes shut as tears threatened to fall. If he cried, it would only make it worse. He could hear Yasha scream through the smoke in her mouth, could hear the cracking of the wall behind her, could hear the grief in her chest. 

“What do you say, Caleb?” Ikathon said. Caleb could see Molly’s spine poking at the skin. His head was almost facing backwards. His peacock feathers were stretched unnaturally. The smoke around him dropped and Molly- Molly’s body, slumped forward. 

“Thank you,” Caleb breathed. 

And he broke. He broke, just a bit. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LET ME SAY AGAIN THAT THOUGH I SEEM TO LOOOOVE KILLING MOLLY OFF, HE WILL NEVER EVER EVER EVER STAY THAT WAY!!!! HE’S GOGING TO BE FINE!!!!!! HE’S GETTING THAT GOOD GOOD WIZARD DICK AFTER THIS!!!! I PROMISE!!! I’M SORRY


	11. Deadly Echoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death, the person and the idea, chess, bone and blood, and doors ajar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised y’all that it would be okay.

When Caleb was a boy, his mother used to tell him a story about the man who cheated death. It was, perhaps, not the best subject for a small boy and it may have contributed to Caleb’s obsession with the macabre, but he had never been the kind of child that could be satiated with fairy tales or happy endings. His mother used to say that his soul was old, that he had walked the earth before and he wasn’t glad to be back. He was a melancholy child, but she never seemed bothered by it. He supposed that she had walked the earth before too. His father had tried for several years to entertain him with the things that he thought boys should do, hunting, fishing, manual labor. He was absolutely miserable at all of them and, somewhere around the age of six, his father stopped trying. Caleb got the feeling that his father never truly understood him. It was alright. His father had loved him unabashedly, perhaps ignorantly, but completely. Caleb and his mother would look at each other knowingly when he seemed to miss a step between the two of them. It was alright. He was new. 

Every few nights, Caleb would beg his mother to tell him the story of the man and death again. It was a simple one, one that he could tell back to her, but there was something about that eerie, soothing story in her deep, alto voice. There was something about it that could calm his aching mind into peace. 

The story itself, the details of it, hadn’t stuck in Caleb’s mind. His memory was fantastic, but some things before the asylum, before the Academy, were blurry, like he wasn’t deserving of those kind memories. Like the name that they had given him, his parents were lost to him, small details bleeding through, but never the concrete. Names, short memories, but no faces. Reality in the abstract, not enough hard lines to make it real. 

He had feelings, though. A blossoming warmth in his chest, the bitter sting of arguments, the sweet feeling of knowing that you are loved. Those things pushed through, but the color of his mother’s eyes, the aftershave his father used, the name of their favorite books, they all eluded him. 

He couldn’t remember the details of the story, but he did remember the ending of it. There was a man who was dead. His soul had left his body, and, as he realized this, he sought any form of explanation. That is when he saw the black, shadowy robe, the dripping darkness of it, the deep, nagging feeling of danger in his chest. It was Death, who had come to collect his soul. As soon as he saw Death, the man knew what had happened. When he begged Death not to take his soul, he was offered a choice. He could either accept his fate and follow them into the afterlife, joining the legions of the souls of the dead, or he could bargain. Death conjured a table and on that table was a chess board. The man’s dread lifted for a moment. He was very good at chess. He counted his options and figured that, if he didn’t bargain his fate, then he would end up in the afterlife, and if he lost, he’d end up there anyway. The way that he saw it, he had nothing to lose. 

“If you win,” Death said, their voice ripping through the space, no origin, just sound vibrating through the air, not generated, “you will not die.” 

Death was little more than a dripping, billowing black robe. Their hands were not skeleton, it would be simplistic to call them a skeleton. They were an embodiment, a visualization of something that he couldn’t possibly understand, a reality that barely brushed against the human species, a vast, unending idea that couldn’t be contained in his head. Death was a robe and a skeleton, but they were the summation of so much more. The man tried not to look at the skeletal fingers, twisted with blackened sinew and muscle. He tried to ignore the way that Death looked at him, eyeless, dark, silently judging him as they played. 

The man was good at chess, but Death had had thousands of years of practice. Very soon, the man found his king being cornered by Death’s queen. His loss was imminent. He began to sweat. It was this moment of gut clenching fear that put the idea in his mind, the idiom that he had heard so many times before; he could cheat Death. 

In retrospect, the man knew that Death had given him the opportunity on purpose, but, when Death turned their head away for a moment, the man seized it. He replaced a stolen rook back on his board, near other pieces, camouflaged in the mess of white on his side of the board. Death didn't seem to notice when they turned back, and their queen was no longer able to take his king. 

The man didn’t know how long they played. In his periphery, he could see his wife coming home to him and finding his body, he could see his body being collected, he could see his wife transition through grief and back into routine. It was all in the background, though. His mind was dedicated to the game.

His cheating continued, taking advantage of Death’s small distractions. After what felt like both months and only a moment, he was winning. He had pushed his way forward, cutting across the board and had closed in on Death’s king. Death’s bony fingers hovered over the board for several minutes. The man had no mind to rush them. He could see his checkmate, he could map the way that he would win. Death finally moved their pawn forward and took one of the man’s knights. That was fine by him. It was his rook that had the king. 

In one movement, the man hooked his middle finger around Death’s king and replaced his rook in its place. 

Death was still for several minutes. 

After a long, heavy silence, the man could feel the smile on Death’s face, even if Death didn’t have one. His stomach turned. His victory became acid in his gut. 

“You said you’d let me go if I won,” he had no idea his voice worked. Like Death’s, it didn’t come from his mouth, but from all of the air around him, vibrating through his skull in an unfamiliar and unnerving way. Death’s laugh was dry and horrible. 

“I said that you would not die.” Death’s voice was full of glee. “I did not say that you would live.” In one moment, Death and their chess table were gone, leaving the man alone, floating in the place between Death’s domain and his home, unable to perish and unable to live. 

It was a sad story, one meant to dissuade him from cheating. He liked it, though. He couldn’t explain why, but he liked hearing it over and over. 

That was the story that he thought about as Ikathon’s magic probed his insides. He didn’t scream, he didn’t cry, he was locked somewhere in his head, tucked away from the pain of the magic or the ache of Molly’s body laying on the floor in front of him. His eyes traced those peacock feathers, searched for any sign of pulse or breath. He wondered if Molly was playing chess with Death right then, if he had done it before, and if he would win. Caleb hadn’t played chess with him. He didn’t even know if Molly could play, but somehow, he wished that Molly was being kept company. That his soul was being distracted from what was happening in his periphery. He hoped that he couldn’t see the black, smoking burns across his flesh. He hoped that he couldn’t see Yasha screaming, slamming her weight back against the radiator, trying to break through the magic holding her back, even through her rage. 

Ikathon left, at some point. He let his magic seep away from Caleb and took his chin in his hand. Caleb half hoped that he would snap his neck too, but he didn’t. He just looked into his eyes, his lip curling up in contempt, and snarled. 

“You are nothing, Bren.” He said, voice low enough that Yasha couldn’t hear over her own screams. “You are less than the body on the floor.” And Caleb knew it to be true. 

His magic leaked away from the room after he closed the door behind him, breaking the hold it had on Yasha. As soon as she was free, she leapt at the door, pounding on it with all of her strength. The flimsy, wooden thing should have buckled beneath her weight. It held strong, though, not even denting as the skin of her knuckles peeled away on it. 

Caleb didn’t say anything, didn’t interrupt her raging. He just sat, pain coursing through his chest, and eyes locked on Molly’s still form on the ground. 

Yasha’s pounding stopped after several minutes. Her hands were bleeding, shaking as she withdrew from the door and pulled at her braids. She seemed to notice that he was still there and she walked, hallowed around him and broke the amethyst from around his hands. Shards of it stuck in his skin, but he paid them no mind. His magic came flooding back as soon as the stone fell from his wrists. 

It was a sharp, overwhelming pain in the pit of his chest that for a moment, distracted from the far away ache there. He gasped, clutched his throat, and breathed through the vertigo that surged through his senses. He came back to himself with Yasha bending over him, her hands gripping either shoulder. Her hold on him grounded him somewhat along with the pain in his chest, and, little by little, Caleb began to claw his way back into himself. It was slow going and it was painful, but he did it. 

The first real sensation that hit him was the nausea. He didn’t think that it counted as an emotion, but he really thought that it should at that point. It was so poignant and sharp that he could feel it burning in his chest like love and anger and pain. It was the smell, he thought. That sweet scent of decay that Caduceus always smelled of. He hadn’t noticed that it permeated the room, but as he looked down at Molly’s body on the floor, he felt the finality of it. 

The last time that Molly had died before him, it had taken the blink of an eye for him to re-emerge, magic burning through him, cauterizing the gaping wound in his chest, alight with power, burning with rage. Now, though, there was nothing for his magic to do. He was broken, laying twisted on the floor. He was so still, not burning or raging. He was just dead. 

And then he wasn’t. 

It was gradual, the way that he rose from the dead. It started with a sick cracking noise, the sound of bone grinding against bone, skin shifting and stretching. Caleb watched as Molly’s head rotated, moved from its unnatural angle around, snapping back into place. As his head realigned, there was a terrifying moment where Caleb was certain that Ikathon had made a zombie out of him. As the thought crashed through his mind, Yasha stuck her arm in front of him, as though she could protect him from an undead creature in a locked room. 

And then, ragged and horrible, Mollymauk began to breathe. He heaved, sucking air into his long-still lungs. His eyes rolled, red flashing through the cracks in his eyelids as he fought to regain consciousness. Caleb and Yasha listened for a few seconds to that labored breathing, stuck to their places. It was Yasha who moved first. She shot forward and gently collected Molly’s jerking, shaking form into her arms, cradling him against her chest. Caleb eased from his chair and his legs wouldn’t hold him, so he fell to his knees next to them. He took Molly’s cold face in his hands and fought the urge to kiss every inch of it. 

When Molly’s eyes opened, they were covered in a sheen of blood. He blinked and blinked, trying to clear the stuff away. Tears of blood ran down his cheeks. His voice seemed stuck in his throat, rasping against the bone that had just been unnaturally pressed against his windpipe. Yasha shushed him, pressed her head into his chest, and wept. 

Caleb didn’t. He kept Molly’s face in his hands, traced the lines of the peacock feathers on his neck. Molly’s eyes cleared and they stuck to him, searching his face in a dazed, confused fashion. 

“You two look like shit.” Molly rasped, shaking, frozen hands meeting Yasha’s hair. Yasha let out a dry, humorless laugh into Molly’s chest before she emerged, smiling with puffy eyes. 

“What the fuck?” She asked, more breath than voice. Molly tried to laugh, but it mixed with shaking and coughing, his sluggish lungs trying to keep up. 

“You were dead,” Caleb whispered, not letting go of Molly, afraid that if he did, he would simply disappear. “You were dead.” Molly’s brow screwed up, his freezing fingers trailing across Caleb’s face. 

“I told him it wouldn’t stick.” Molly’s smirk was lazy and tired. His eyes were dropping. He looked like he was about to slip back into unconsciousness. 

There was a sharp, rattling sound from outside the door, something heavy and hard colliding with it with the intention of breaking through. The three of them froze and held their breaths, waiting for another sound. When another crash came, they moved. 

Yasha hauled Molly to his unsteady feet and Caleb wrapped Molly’s arm over his shoulder. The two of them made their way to the back corner of the room, Molly leaning more heavily on Caleb than he would have liked. Yasha stood in front of them, her shoulders squared, bare of her weapon but hands up and ready to fight without it. 

There was one more crash into the door, and then, for a long moment, it was entirely silent. Slight scratches came from the handle and finally, with magic leaking through the cracks in the door, the lock clicked open. The door creaked ajar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me on Tumblr at gayshitiguess.


	12. Desperate Measures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doors Ajar, The Kinds of Tricks that Astrid Plays, Rubys in Wirsts, Walls of Fire, and Righteous Anger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are almost there you guys!!! One more chapter and then the epilogue! This one has been quite the journey! Beware took me just over a month to complete where as this has taken me over three. It’s been a denser, more complicated story. I’ve had a really good time exploring Caleb’s mindset and really firming up the foundation of MY Caleb versus Canonical Caleb. It’s been a blast. 
> 
> Also!! If you’re looking for And the World Drops Dead inspired content, then check out RiaHawk’s The Man With The Wings!!! Read it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17667065 it is INSANELY GOOD!!
> 
> I also wanted to thank you guys. The outpouring of support that I got after my last update was genuinely heartwarming. I wanted to let you guys know that I’m doing okay and not to worry at all. Thank you guys for being so ridiculously understanding and wonderful. I love you guys. 
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy this chapter! Shit is starting to go down! I recommend listening to “Sabotage” by the Beasty Boys when reading this chapter. It was my soundtrack the entire time I was writing this. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr at gayshitiguess. Thanks and I hope you enjoy!

Caleb was building up burning, fiery energy in his hand when he heard Fjord’s voice through the door. 

“Shut the fuck up, do you want them to find us?” It was soft and whispered, but unmistakably his, thick with the fake accent that he threw on and off. Caleb’s heart leapt to his throat but he kept his hand burning, stayed tense, aware of the kinds of tricks that Astrid liked to play. It was Beau who poked her head in first, disheveled and lined with worry, but unmistakably hers. Caleb let the ball of fire loose anyway, sending fire crashing to the wall next to her head. She managed to keep from shouting, but did jump behind the door, using it to shield herself. 

“What the fuck dude?” Beau hissed through the door. 

“I apologize, Beauregard,” Caleb said, “but I know what these people are capable of. I have no reason to believe that this is anything other than a trick.” Molly’s hand tightened on his arm. Yasha looked back at him, saw that he wasn’t joking, and tensed again, ready to strike if she was given reason to. 

“Dude, come on,” Beau mumbled. Caleb ignored her.

“Prove it.” Caleb said. “Step into the room slowly, all of you. Close the door behind you, and please be quiet.” He heard Beau sigh as she slowly opened the door, hands raised in defeat. She had a large package of some sort wrapped up in cloth tied to her back, her staff in hand. Fjord followed her, his tattoo swirling around his wrist, begging to be let out. Caduceus waved sweetly as he closed the door behind him. Nott and Jester were nowhere to be seen. 

Caleb made sure that Molly was steadied against the wall before he stepped past Yasha, collecting gold in his hands. He could feel the ache in his chest building, the way that his magic sucked away at him. He rubbed his fingers together, blew hot air into his cupped hands, and thrust them out towards them. Glowing gold circles appeared beneath their feet, and out of the ground came golden tendrils, circling around them. Light danced across their skin. Beau let out a startled yelp but managed to keep her head. As he searched their auras for any sign of magical tampering, Caleb could feel his magic eating away at him. He pushed through, kept looking, searched every inch of them. Fjord was thick with darkness, drunk in something malicious that was reaching towards his soul, but it wasn’t anything that he hadn’t been surrounded by for years. Fjord was somewhat of an idiot, but he was also strong in his morals. It was hard to imagine Fjord being corrupted. Caduceus was considerably softer. Through his aura, Caleb could see Caduceus’ real form. It was shockingly similar to his human one, the main points remaining. He still had that long, fiery pink mohawk, he was still unnaturally tall, he was still much too skinny. He also had fur covering most of his body, light grey and delicate, and long, floppy ears that twitched with emotion. Beau was predictably free of any magic, but in the pit of her stomach was bubbling, burning anger. He could see it building up inside of her, ready to explode. 

He let his magic fade away, closed his eyes, and shook the smoke from his fingers. Caleb’s head swam and it was only Yasha’s steady hand around his waist that kept him from falling. 

“They’re okay,” He said after a moment, trying to catch his breath. “They’re okay.”

Caduceus wasted no time making for Molly, who was swaying dangerously on his feet. He collected Molly up in his arms, wrapping him up in glowing pink magic. 

“It’s okay,” he whispered, tucking Molly’s head into his chest. “You’re okay.” As Caduceus’ magic wrapped around him, he stood a bit stiffer, and pulled Molly out to examine him. “Now that’s strange,” he said, running his thumb over Molly’s cheek. 

“Come on now, I know I’m unconventional,” Molly could barely get the joke out before Caduceus was swarming him with more magic.

“Something undead has got its hands on you.” Caduceus‘ voice was tinged with concern. 

“I was dead,” Molly murmured, steadying himself on Caduceus’ arm. Caleb saw the alarm and tension enter Clay’s body as he ran more magic over Mollymauk.

“Caduceus,” Caleb said, patting Yasha’s arm in appreciation. “We have no explanation at the moment, but he is alive, and we have pressing matters.” Clay’s eyes slowly tore away from Molly as he nodded, clearly perturbed by the idea of leaving it alone, but recognizing that Caleb was right. 

“We’ll dig into this when we get home.” He promised Molly, clearly uncomfortable but wired to comfort. 

Molly looked better, more filled out, skin more flushed. His eyes drooped with sleep, but he managed to stay standing, leaning into Caduceus’ touch. 

“Where are Nott and Jester?” Caleb asked, managing to stand on his own. 

“They’re running recon,” Fjord said, “trying to find an exit. We can’t go out the way we came.” 

“Where are we?” 

“Las Vegas,” Beau offered, “creepy abandoned casino.” Caleb nodded, throwing his mind back to the sidewalk outside of Modern Literature, the places that flashed before his eyes. He recognized the carpet, the ugly golden trim. 

“I’m so sorry,” Caleb said, clutching at his head. What else had Ikathon screwed in there? What else had been planted in his brain without him knowing? “I’m afraid that I’ve walked us right into their hands.” 

“Come on, you didn’t know that Eodwulf had shit,” Fjord said, clapping a hand on his shoulder, “you couldn’t have known.” 

“No,” Caleb said, “no, I think that I was made to go to Oregon. I think that I was made to put us in a trap.” The air was silent and heavy. 

“Caleb,” Caduceus’ voice was thick with worry and resignation, “I think it's time.” The finality of it made Caleb’s heart break. 

There was the sound of feet hitting the ground and badly concealed whispers as Nott and Jester came bursting into the room, shutting the door behind them. Nott had a heavy backpack thrown over her shoulder, most likely full of whatever precious artifacts that she could get her hands on. Part of Caleb wanted to check them over for some sort of illusion, but the look on Nott’s face when she saw him was enough to convince him, and Jester was perhaps the most difficult person to impersonate on the face of the earth. He pushed his paranoia down. 

“We found a way out!” Nott screeched, clutching Jester’s hand in hers. Jester made a sound as she saw the state of them and rushed to wrap Yasha up in a hug. Yasha looked alarmed and looked to Caleb for help even though he was the last person in the room to be able to help with this. Yasha awkwardly patted Jester’s head but didn’t squirm out of her hold. “Oh, Caleb,” Nott whispered. She reached out to him, taking his hand in hers. 

“I think that we need to have a conversation,” Beau said. “They deserve to know.” Caleb nodded, his head clouding up as he squeezed Nott’s hand in his. Beau stepped forward, urging the others to follow, surrounding Caleb. He felt suffocated, choked out. His other hand came to rest on Beau’s shoulder, seeking a firm foundation. He felt unsteady in a fundamental way, as though the very being of him couldn’t hold him up anymore. Her hand came to rest over his, a silent confirmation that she had him. That she wouldn’t let him fall. 

“I have kept so much from you.” Caleb muttered. ”I have kept it all inside.” He could feel the grief in his chest. 

“Are you secretly in love with me?” Jester asked, poking his cheek. He wanted to smile, to laugh at her joke, to live in that moment with her, but he knew what was outside of the door. He knew what was waiting for him, and he knew that, in the next half hour, he might very well be looking at Jester’s corpse. 

“This man,” his throat closed up, his heart was pounding, “he was a teacher to me. And he used me to do horrible things. And I have been using you. But we were being trained to serve our God above all else. And he-he..” Caleb swallowed and gripped Beau’s shoulder tighter. “He was a little mad.” 

“I’m curious as to how much of it was for God and how much it was a veil for his own personal exploits.” Beau muttered, trying to steady him. 

“He believed that the unwashed masses relied on their base instincts and the highest calling was the rise above the muck and control the cattle for the good of all.” The words were familiar and nauseating in Caleb’s mouth. He was afraid that he would scream or throw up or pass out or all three. 

“That sounds like a bad person.” Jester’s tone was sure, blind to how complicated it was. He wasn’t just a bad person. He was so important to Caleb. He was everything. 

“Many of us felt that way. Feel that way.” Caleb said. 

“Do you still feel that way?” Nott asked, running her thumb across the top of his hand. 

“I don’t believe in much of anything,” Caleb said. He held his breath and hoped that Nott wouldn’t see through him. 

“How powerful are these three?” Fjord asked. “Our usual tricks, would they fall short?” 

“Astrid and Eodwulf are still students.” Caleb said, withdrawing his hand from Beau’s shoulder. Her hand came to the small of his back, steadying him. “We might be able to take on them. But Ikathon...” 

“He was able to restrain all three of us.” Yasha offered. 

“He could splatter us all in an instant if he wanted to.” Caleb’s heart was pounding in his chest. His ribs ached. 

“You keep saying that you’re using us.” Beau said. 

“There’s a difference between using someone and relying on someone.” Nott said. 

“That’s what I was going to say!” Beau nudged him with her elbow, making him sway on his feet. “Do you think that Molly was using us? We’re also here, volunteering our help.” Caleb’s heart seized in his chest. It was different with Molly. Molly didn’t deserve that demon on his back. Molly didn’t deserve to be possessed and killed. Caleb, though, he deserved everything that Ikathon would do to him. He deserved every grief, every pain, every torture. And if he were less of a coward he would stop hiding behind his friends and send them out of danger. But he was a coward. And he was hiding. And he didn’t know how he could possibly explain that to her. He didn’t know how he could look Beau in the eye and show her every scar on his soul. 

“It’s only using us if you don’t like us.” Jester said. “And you do like us right?” Nott smiled up at him as Jester began to shimmy her shoulders. Molly laughed softly. 

“ _ Ja.”  _ He said, rubbing his eyes. 

“ _ Ja!”  _ Jester responded, shaking her hands and dancing slightly in her spot.

“Oh, Jester,” he said, “I am glad that you see good in me.” She smiled, Nott gripped his hand, Beau patted his back a bit too hard. 

“And hey,” Beau said, “you said that you don’t believe in anything. Maybe you could try and believe in us, a little bit.” Caleb let that sit in his head. He nodded slowly. 

For the first time since his parents had died, Caleb knew what it felt like to have something to lose. He wouldn’t have that. He wouldn’t let that happen. 

“The longer we stay here, the more likely they are to find us.” Fjord said. “They’re going to come back here eventually. What’s the game plan?” 

“If we let them live, they will not stop.” Caleb let go of Nott’s hand, “They will hunt us until they kill us.” 

“There’s no running,” Yasha said, “We have to fight them.” Caleb couldn’t help the instinct to run. He couldn’t help the way that his skin crawled to move, to get them out. He remained, stayed rooted to his spot. Molly’s hand found his shoulder, squeezed. Caleb leaned into the touch. 

“We need to move quickly.” Caleb scratched at his arm. “We can’t afford to lose any more time. It's best if we have the element of surprise.” Fjord nodded. Beau untied the package and retrieved Yasha’s giant sword and Molly’s simitars. He swung them experimentally and smiled like a man whose leg had grown back after being cut off. 

“Who needs to go where?” Fjord asked. 

“Eodwulf and Astrid are bound to be troublesome, but won’t need more than two each. The rest can focus on Ikathon.” He said. Nott retrieved her crossbow. 

“I’ll try and hit him first,” She said. 

“Yeah, if we can get a few shots in, we might be able to knock him down a few pegs.” Beau said. 

“The more hurt he is, the more desperate he will get.” Caleb watched as Fjord made his way to the door and pressed his ear against it. “The more likely he will be to do something catastrophic.” 

“Have a clear exit.” Mollymauk said. 

“Run if you have to,” Caleb could feel himself trying to retreat but refused. He would not let himself slip away. “Don’t get dead.” He added. He stuck out his closed fist and seven returned it, knuckles pounding together. 

“You too,” seven voices responded. Something to lose indeed. 

Fjord cracked the door open, letting light creep into the dusty, bloody room. The air was stale, dead. Caleb breathed it in anyway, forced himself to move forward. The casino was terribly silent, none of the signs of life that Caleb associated with Ikathon and the others. There was no evidence of Eodwulf’s messiness, part way concealed by Astrid’s OCD. There were no books strewn across tables, papers scattering the floor, gemstones, crystals, shards of beautiful earth covered in dried blood. He scratched at his arms again. 

Nott all but disappeared as soon as they stepped out of the room and into the long hallway outside. Fjord let his sword materialize in his hand, sickening bone with a large, yellow eye imbedded in to the hilt of it. Caleb dug through his pockets for his components and found them empty. He patted them in a silent panic. If he had no components there was only so much that he could do in battle. Jester caught his shoulder and retrieved his coat from her bag, wrinkled and too warm for the weather, but full of vials of molasses, bat shit, crystals, fireflies. Everything that he needed. He kissed her on the top of the head and swung his coat on. 

For a group so loud, they managed to sneak effectively through the hallways of the casino. They came upon a large, open room full of slot machines, roulette wheels, and green-velvet lined tables surrounded by the same uncomfortable chairs that he and Molly had been tied to. In the center of the room, there was a large poker table that had been converted to a research center. He could see Astrid’s area, neatly stacked papers, notes written in clipped, sharp cursive. He could see where Eodwulf sat, coffee mugs and scrawled notes ripping across college ruled pages. 

Ikathon was standing in the middle of the room, Eodwulf standing in front of him. His head was hung, his chin pressed into his chest. Wulf had his palms turned up to the sky, his arms bared for crystals to be pushed into the skin. Caleb watched as Ikathon worked a ruby into the wrist. Wulf stifled whimpers and cries of pain. Caleb’s stomach flipped over as fantom fingers trailed along his arms. Astrid was sitting at the table, not daring to look up at Wulf, knowing that she was next. Caleb felt pity surge up inside of him and, for a moment, he considered the possibility of freeing the two of them. 

And then Nott’s arrow sunk into Ikathon’s back. A ball of blue-green energy exploded over his shoulders. Pink magic dusted chains over him. Yasha let out a cry as she charged forward. Molly drew his swords across the back of his neck and lit his blood on fire. 

A wall of dark, blackened flames cut across the ground and stopped Yasha and Molly in their tracks. Ikathon turned, his hand missing a finger, still conducting energy. He sneered, turned to Molly. 

“I killed you,” he muttered, contempt spreading across his features. 

“I told you it wouldn’t stick,” Molly smiled. 

“I’m not interested in you,” Ikathon spat. “Any of you. You are all just fat to cut off. Leave before I decide that your deaths might be useful to me.” Molly clenched his jaw and forced a smile full of too-sharp teeth and rage. 

“That’s not how we operate, I’m afraid.” Molly said. “When someone decides to torment one of us, the rest don’t take kindly to it. So this is your last warning, you colossal dick face, and do know that I am absolutely insane when I say this; Lay another finger on him and I will kill all your pets and bed your wife!” 

The look of confusion on Ikathon’s face told Caleb that he didn’t quite know what to do with Mollymauk. Caleb couldn’t help the laugh that escaped his chest. He saw Molly puff up as he heard it. Ikathon’s other hand shot out towards him, a tendril of shadow reaching for his throat. Caleb threw up golden energy to block it off. 

“God, you’re not pretty enough to be this stupid.” Molly spat. He swung his swords once, twice, and charged through the fire. 

Caleb watched as the flames licked at his clothes, but Molly kept moving, ducking under Ikathon’s arm and cutting for Eodwulf instead. Yasha charged forward after him, the flames decreasing in Ikathon’s shock. She slammed into him, throwing him a few feet back to land on his knees. Her sword met air as he used his magic to push himself away. Arrows appeared out of nowhere, and then there was Nott, perched on Ikathon’s shoulders, clawing at his eyes. Beau pulled the collar of her windbreaker up and ran forward, smacking her staff into the side of Ikathon’s face. 

Caduceus rubbed his hands together and, with sparks of turquoise magic, a stream of water appeared between them. He doused the flames and ran after Molly, Jester hot on his heels. She had her ax raised and she brought the blunt end of it into the back of Wulf’s knees. 

“You fucking suck!” She screamed.

“Please!” Wulf said, his voice heavy with grief, “please, you don’t understand! I don’t want to!” Mollymauk took a handful of Wulf’s hair in his hand. 

“I don’t fucking care.” He punched Wulf in the face, the hilt of his sword breaking the skin above his eyebrow. Molly licked the blood off his fingers and kicked Wulf in the ribs.

Caleb was so distracted by how fucking amazing and terrifying his friends were that he didn’t see Astrid’s magic coming for him. Luckily, Fjord did, and he managed to pull him enough out of the way that acid didn’t tear through his head. It wasn’t quite enough for the magic to miss him completely, though, and burning, sickly green began to melt through his clothing. Caleb ignored it, and collected fire in his hand. 

“Traitor!” Astrid cried, those pale blue eyes burning. “ _ Ficken kippe!”  _ She spat the words at his feet. Fjord held his sword forward and began to circle around her. 

“Astrid,  _ denk nach!”  _ Caleb screamed. If he could only make her understand. If he could only make her see. “ _ Sie sind schlau, sehen Sie, was er tut. Sehen Sie seine Lügen!”  _ Astrid collected more acid in her hands. 

“You are the blind one, Bren.” She let the acid loose the same that that Fjord cut down the length of her back. She cried, misfired, and fell to her knees. Caleb panicked and kicked her in the face, sending her sprawling on her stomach. 

“Shit!” Fjord smiled and offered his fist. Caleb pounded it with his shaking hand. 

With a cry and a loud cracking sound, Beau landed a few feet away from them, her arm twisted unnaturally. She struggled to stand on her own. Fjord rushed forward and heaved her up with Caleb’s help. 

“He’s killing us, man,” She struggled out. Pink magic collided with her and her arm popped back into place. She cursed and leaned on her staff. “We need a game plan, he’s not going down easy.” Caleb watched as Ikathon gripped the back of Nott’s jacket and threw her forward, sending her colliding with a slot machine that began to spit out golden coins. One particularly well placed blow sent Yasha to her knees and her sword skittering across the ground. Jester barely got her shield up in time to block a killing blow. Black smoke wrapped around Molly’s neck and squeezed, threatening to break it all over again. 

Nott came skittering up to him, shoving coins into her pockets. 

“Caleb, you need to go!” Nott’s voice was desperate and her yellow eyes were so large, they might as well have been her entire head. 

“I need  _ them,”  _ the words came out of him without his permission. He hadn’t realized that that was true, but it was. It was, fundamentally, somewhere in his chest. In Nott’s eyes there was fear and desperation and pride. Caleb ran his fingers through Nott’s tangled hair, lingered on her for a moment. 

“Ikathon!” Caleb cried, stepping away from Beau. Her hand wrapped around his wrist, but he pulled free. “ _ Ich bin was du willst!” _

Ikathon moved like a corpse, slinking across the ugly casino carpet like some dead, rotting thing. The smile that spread across his face was yellow and horrifying. Caleb swallowed down the bile rising in his throat and squared his shoulders. Beau tried to walk after him, but as Ikathon came to meet him, he raised a circle of flames around them. Nobody needed to die for him. Nobody needed to see this. 

He held his own for a few seconds, and of that he was proud. There was a time when Caleb would approach Ikathon with his palms facing heaven, his head bowed. Here, though, he kept his chin up, fought back as best he could. It was over in all of three seconds. Caleb’s magic was weak, and he was starting to fail. He clipped Trent’s shoulder with fire, but he kept advancing. Caleb threw ice into his chest, but he kept moving. Ikathon’s hand snaked around the back of Caleb’s neck, brought his face close. Caleb’s knees gave out. He crashed into the ground, he could hear Mollymauk’s screams somewhere far away. Curses and insults, screaming that Caleb was an idiot, an idiot, that he didn’t have to do this alone. 

Ikathon’s hand, sharp with smoke and magic, tore through the skin of his chest, sunk in his rib cage, stole the air from his lungs. 

Caleb had spent a long time thinking about how he would die. He had considered the dramatic irony of burning to death, he had dreamt about the quick release of a bullet or a blade. He thought so much about being eaten alive, sliced to pieces, having his rib cage torn from his body, his brain rotted in his skull. He had thought so much about it that maybe, by the time that he actually did die, he would greet Death like a friend. He would take their hand and be led into the afterlife without complaint. And every single time that he had imagined it, he had always settled on dying like this, pinned to his knees, panic running through him, Ikathon’s hand shoved into his chest. This was how he died. This was how he was meant to die. This was what he deserved. 

Caleb thought about that. He thought about how he’d run from this since he was sixteen-years-old, how he’d been running for decades and how he was going to die just like he would have if he had never run at all. And he got pissed. He was so fucking angry. He was angry at Astrid and Eodwulf and Trent Ikathon and Mollymauk Tealeaf and Bren Aldric Ermendrud. He had never been so pissed off and he was not going to die angry. He wouldn’t. 

Leofric and Una were in their coffins and in his blood and he couldn’t die until he proved to himself that he deserved that. He wouldn’t die until he proved that he had earned the blood burning in his veins. Until he earned the name that they had given him. 

And he didn’t want to die. For perhaps the first time since that night in Berlin with the snow dusting his eyelashes, he didn’t want to die. 

A scream ripped through his throat and all at once, that magic making him limp for years burst from him. It tore through his skin as Ikathon did and ripped outward, cutting the ties of the smoke running through Ikathon’s hands. Caleb made his way to his feet, shaking and screaming and burning alive and he was angry.

And he was not going to die. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me on Tumblr at gayshitigeuss.


	13. A Name Is Earned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stars, Nothing, Power, Glass, Polynices and Eteocles, and Home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y’all we did it. This here is the last chapter. Let me say, there will be an epilogue next week that will tie everything up, but nevertheless we did it!! Omg!!!! I’m dead and ready to get this finished. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter!!

When Caleb opened his eyes, he was floating. He was weightless, existing in some blank, other place. It was a void, not black and not white, somewhere in between, a shade a grey that hurt to think too much about. Caleb shook his head, rubbed at his eyes, tried to find his wits somewhere in the nothingness. 

There were stars in the nothing, blinks of light in the space around him. He squinted, trying to see what constellations were in the sky. He needed to know where he was and what time of year it was. He needed to know if he was still in the last place he remembered. 

He remembered Oregon. Boring, the little town crawling with magic. He remembered the cold, the sharp air stinging in his lungs. 

He remembered the weeping willow, the clay door through which he pulled Yasha, fighting, fighting, yelling at Molly. 

Molly. He remembered Mollymauk, all gnashing teeth, blood on his lips, neck snapped in half and then not. Molly’s voice, cutting through the fire and the pain and the determination swirling in his own head. 

“ _ You idiot _ !” His voice was dripping with grief. “ _ You don’t have to do this alone! _ ” 

Caleb blinked and looked at the stars. They were all wrong, all mixed up. He couldn’t find Orion or Ursa Major, or Polaris, his North Star, the one that he could always look up and find. The star that lit his rituals, the star that pointed him home. He was lost, the sky full of stars he didn’t recognize, and his head swimming with Mollymauk, his face, his voice, the words on his lips. 

“ _ You idiot! You fucking idiot!”  _

Shapes and forms of purple and blue shifted around him, amorphous and impossible to understand. He was drifting, falling into a void of dark and star. He felt himself come to a stop, a threshold, and something told Caleb that if he went on from there, there would be no going back. 

He wasn’t usually the kind of person who took extreme action. But he knew that somewhere, Molly was waiting, calling, screaming for him. And he knew that if he didn’t do this right now, he wouldn’t survive to see him again. 

He moved forward, moving through the threshold, and he moved from floating to flying, rocketing forward. He was moving and he wasn’t, a wild, dual sensation that spiked his heart and his breathing and made his head swim. 

He began to slow, crawling to a stop, and in front of him was a grey, pulsing object, floating but a foot in front of him. He looked to see his hand in front of him, reaching out for the object. He managed to stay his muscles, to keep himself from touching it. The thing ached for him, begged for his contact in the empty, star filled space. 

It was immediacy and infinity, it was everything and nothing. It was familiar and alien. He could feel his mind trying to wrap around it, but he couldn’t. It was beyond him, the first thing he’d ever come across that he truly couldn’t understand. 

He looked down to see his hand in front of him, reaching out for the object. The thing ached for him, begged for his contact. It was immediacy and infinity, it was everything and nothing. It was familiar and al-

Caleb shook his head, fighting off the loop that his thoughts tried to force him into. It was so easy to get lost in it. 

He looked down to see his hand in front of him, reaching out for the object. He managed to stay his muscles. 

“Mother and father,” he whispered, “I hope I do not let you down.” 

He let his hand go, wrapped his fingers around the thing. 

He wrapped his hands around it, tightened his grip, kept it close in both of his hands. He drew it up to his chest, and felt it pass through the skin and the bone and the muscle to get at the meat of him. Flashes of dark magic, of smoke choking out his lungs, of skinny, cold, cruel hands touching, bruising, slapping, permeated his mind, but the warmth that spread through his chest washed them away. He closed his eyes and let that warmth spread through him. 

Possibility became mailable in his mind. 

His eyes opened, and he was on his knees, he hands pressed to his chest. He examined himself slowly, took in the golden magic swirling around him. He didn’t ache. He didn’t hurt. There was no drain in his chest. The magic under his skin was pushing through his pores, and he wasn’t afraid to let it. He collected it in his hands, let the liquid gold pool around him, drip into pixie dust on the floor. He was burning and he was crying and he was power. 

Ikathon stood he before him, hands still dripping with smoke, eyes wide with shock. That was perhaps the first time that Caleb had seen him with that exact expression. Surprised, caught off guard, and afraid. Trent Ikathon was afraid. 

“How?” He asked, “I crippled you!  _ Branded  _ you! You belong to _ me! _ ” Caleb stood slowly, twirled the magic around his fingers. He didn’t say anything. As he walked, the carpet sizzled and burned beneath his feet. Tears steamed off of his face. A laugh bubbled out of his chest. He moved up to Trent, met his eyes, brought a burning hand up to cup his cheek. 

“I belong to no one.” Caleb whispered. 

He dug his hand into Ikathon’s chest, pushing past his rib cage and into his center. Cold, harsh magic sat in his lungs, a stark contrast to the warm, slimy stuff that surrounded it. Caleb wrapped his hand around that, dug his burning fingers into it, and pulled. 

Out of Ikathon came Orthax, writhing and screaming and terrible. 

The sound that escaped Ikathon was horrible, wet, and sticky. He fell to his knees, clutching at the hole in his chest. Caleb stood back, still holding on to whatever he had managed to grab. Ikathon’s magic, what was left of it, slowly started to stitch his skin and bones back together. Blood trickled down his chin and his eyes were large, blank, dying. 

The room was silent. Caleb could feel eyes on him, tearing into him. Nobody moved to stop him or help him. He turned to the thing in his hand. 

“You are Orthax.” He said. The shadow swirled around his grip. 

“ _ Release me,”  _ it slithered. Caleb cringed away from the slimy, smokey voice. “ _ I have been held captive for too long in that  _ thing.” Caleb could feel it tugging towards Ikathon, trying to break through Caleb’s hold. He held fast. He didn’t know what kind of havoc it would wreak if he let go. 

“You have made quite the enemy, teacher,” Caleb said, turning back to Ikathon. His magic was almost done tying the broken parts of him back together again. 

“Exorcise it, Bren,” Ikathon warned, trying to rise to his feet but failing. “It’s too dangerous without me controlling it.” 

Caleb had been angry for a very long time. He had been angry for decades, but it had only ever been at himself. He had been carefully cultivating a self hatred so deeply rooted that he blamed himself for everything. He blamed himself for his parents, for his failures, for those ten years lost in his brain, for the crystals in his arms. It was his fault, and if it wasn’t, he deserved it anyway. He deserved every nasty thing that had ever happened to him. He took that hatred, that anger in his chest, and he pointed it outward. 

“Like me?” He shouted. “This creature is a tool to you like I was! Like Astrid and Eodwulf and everyone else in the world! I  _ loved you!  _ You were everything to me! And I was nothing to you!” Caleb moved his hand pointing the writhing mass of shadow towards Ikathon. 

“You insolent child,” Ikathon spat, “I will not listen to your threats.” Ikathon’s hands shot to the ground. Silver magic bled through the carpeting in glowing fault lines. Caleb trailed one as it made its way to Jester’s feet. She stepped back, but it was faster. Caleb watched as it trailed up her legs. Her big, brown eyes met his for only a second before she was encased in silver light. Another caught Beau as she tried to take several steps backwards. Nott managed to jump out of the way of one only to land in the path of another. 

Molly stayed still. His swords were hanging by his side. His jaw was set and his eyes were firm, understanding, confident. Caleb held them, so brown they were almost red, as long as he could. 

“Release them, Ikathon.” Caleb fought to keep the bile in his throat down. He could feel the tendons in his arm straining to keep Orthax in place. His heart was beating much too fast. “Or I will release him on you.” 

“I will not fear you, Bren.” Trent’s eyes were on Orthax, never meeting Caleb. 

“I am a patient man, Trent Ikathon.” Caleb’s air vibrated in his chest. “But Orthax is not. Either I release him or he tears through me to get to you. How long are you willing to wait?” 

Fear melted across Trent’s features. His hand was still laid in the ground, glowing silver. Caleb loosened his grip slightly, let the shadows inch that closer to his face and lick at his features. He flinched back, finally met Caleb’s eye, and seemed to realize that he wasn’t kidding. Ikathon slowly raised his hands from the floor, the silver sinking into the ground. Caleb made sure that he heard each of his friends draw breath into their lungs. 

Ikathon might have been the thing that haunted his dreams, the monster that hid under his bed at night, but in the end, all he really was was a coward. 

Caleb held Orthax forward, let the shadow wrap closer and closer to Ikathon’s face. It would only take him losing his muscles for it to be over. 

And Caleb couldn’t do it. 

He felt the scream building up in his chest as he brought his fist down into the ground, sending Orthax through the cracks. It fought against him, pushing up against his hand, trying to smother him with smoke. Caleb was so bursting with power that it almost didn’t matter. He flooded the thing with light, blotting out the darkness that threatened to eat him alive. 

Caleb didn’t see Ikathon coming, but Jester did. 

She managed to shoot forward and pin his hands behind his back. He grunted, tried to shrug her off, but Jester was almost freakishly strong. There was no way that he would throw her off without magic. 

“Caleb,” Nott’s voice rang in his ears. 

“ _ Ja,”  _ He said, “ _ Ja,  _ just-just hold him there for a moment, please.” Jester nodded, tightening her hold. 

“Just kill me, you coward.” Ikathon sounded tiny. He sounded defeated. That sound brought vindication to Caleb’s bones. 

“No,” He said. He dug through his pockets, looking for a certain vile. He found it after a few moments, a small glass vial full of wet clay and earth from Caduceus’ graveyard. He poured it into the palm of his hand and dropped the vial onto the ground where he stomped on it and broke it beneath his heel. He fished out he straightest piece and dragged it across his clay-covered palm, dragging blood from a thin cut across it. Blood and earth mixed over the glass. Caleb didn’t look up at Jester, didn’t meet her eye. He couldn’t bare to see that light in her eyes, the one that told him that she still saw good in him slowly snuff out. 

He stepped forward, took a handful of Ikathon’s hair into his hand, and dug the glass into Ikathon’s forehead, a burst of magic pushing it past the skull. 

Jester yelp as Ikathon screamed and released him. Caleb’s magic flared and cauterized the wound, leaving a small, straight scar between his eyes. Caleb watched as the awareness leaked from his face, leaving a blank, unintelligent stare in its wake. Caleb shivered. He couldn’t remember Wulf casting that on him. He couldn’t remember the slide of the glass into his brain, but he could recall that look, that blank stare that he wore for a decade. The anger that had sat inside of him was diminishing, slowly leaking away from him, and there was nothing left inside. He was hollow, empty, as empty as Trent Ikathon. 

“Shit,” Fjord said, “shit where’d they go?” Caleb didn’t watch as the others panicked, searching through the room for Wulf and Astrid. Jester moved forward, giving Ikathon a wide berth, and wrapped Caleb in her arms. The pressure of her around him kept him somewhat grounded. 

“It’ll be okay, Caleb,” She whispered, rubbing her hands up and down his arms, “you’ll be okay.” Caleb shook his head, felt tears pool to the surface. 

“No,” he whispered, “no, no, no, no, no,” He could feel Jester beginning to cry, but she didn’t move. 

“Caleb, breathe,” she said, “Caduceus?” She called into the room. 

Caleb felt a hand meet his arm, too cold and shaking, sticky with something just beginning to dry. More arms snaked around him. A deep, warm voice vibrated around him. 

“Come on,  _ Novio,”  _ Molly turned him around, “no reason to look at that.” Caleb could feel his resolve beginning to crumble. He could feel himself slipping away, and he wasn’t inclined to stop it anymore. Beau, Nott, and Yasha stood in front of them, weapons still drawn. 

“Caleb,” Nott said, loading another bolt into her crossbow, “walk outside.” Her jaw was set. Her eyes were wide. She looked positively dangerous. “Go outside, you don’t need to see this.” Caleb’s instinct, for a moment, was to request that Ikathon be kept alive, but as he thought about it, he really couldn’t find a reason. He couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t just killed him himself. 

And then he thought that he couldn’t have done it. And then he thought that maybe he would rely on other people for a change. 

Molly and Jester slowly walked him out of the casino. . They weren’t even in Las Vegas proper, they were sitting on the edge, and as Caleb looked out, he could see the bright red desert and the setting sun dipping below its dunes. He thought about just walking into the sand, but Molly was holding tight to him and helped lower him to the cracked and decrepit asphalt of the parking lot. Caleb could feel the heat of it through his clothing. 

Caleb didn’t know how long it took for Caduceus to join them, but when he did, his hands were covered in red desert dust up to his elbows. He kneeled in front of Caleb and let pink magic swirl around him. Caleb closed his eyes, leaned back against Jester. His heart was still pounding in his chest, still hammering away. 

“You’re running a fever,” Caduceus said, “and you’ve expended much more energy than you should have,” his voice hid the slightest bit of scolding, but his touch was gentle, tracing over cuts and bruises and erasing them from his skin. Caleb let himself drift, not asleep, but not awake, somewhere in between in a star filled nothing. 

___

It took four and a half hours to drive from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, which, considering everything else that had happened in the last week, wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Caleb was curled against Molly’s chest, breathing in the smell of him, the sweat and blood and lavender. 

Molly was still cold, still shaking, still unsteady. Caleb would imagine that he would be that way for a week or so before he was back on his feet truly. How he had managed to fight with his usual tenacity was beyond him. Caleb himself was still far too warm, and Caduceus had pillowed Molly’s head in his lap so that they were both close by. He seemed suspicious, still running his magic through Molly’s aura, trying to pinpoint exactly what had gotten its hands on him. 

Fjord and Beau traded off driving, talking quietly between the two of them. Caleb couldn’t hear them, but the shivers at the back of his neck made him think that it was about him. Molly’s hands, shaking though they were, trailed up and down his back, humming quiet reassurances in Spanish and Gaelic, soft rumbles from his trim chest lulling Caleb between sleep and awake. 

It was only when they had parked on the curb of South Spring Street that Caleb remembered where his shop was. He stumbled out, Molly supporting him, and observed the empty lot where his home belonged. 

“So you can do your thing and we’ll be good.” Fjord said, hiking up his pants and scratching at where blood had dried on his forehead. 

“No,” Caleb muttered. Fjord’s brow furrowed. 

“No what?” He asked. 

“No, I can’t do that.” Caleb scrubbed at his eyes. “I have to be with the shop to move it. I can’t call it.” Caleb snapped his fingers and brought Frumpkin to his shoulders where he could scratch at him nervously. Frumpkin purred and pawed at his collarbone. 

“How far away is Boring, Oregon?” Beau asked. 

“Fourteen hours and seventeen minutes with no traffic.” Caleb said. Frumpkin licked his face. 

“Well, we can make that drive tomorrow,” Caduceus said, “let’s stay at the Grove for now.” They loaded back into the van and Caleb squeezed Caduceus’ hand in his. 

___

The Blooming Grove had several bedrooms, more than there really should be for just one person. Caleb hadn’t pried into Caduceus’ past, but he did know that he had lots of siblings. When Caduceus was refurbishing the Grove, he had designated a bedroom for each of his siblings and his parents in case they decided to drop by. So far, none of them had. 

Caleb and Molly had been deposited into the closest room, a small, teal area with two large beds and a placard on the door that read “Polynices & Eteocles.” 

“The twins can be territorial,” Caduceus had said, “but if you don’t tell them, I won’t.” 

They had slept for the first twenty four hours of their stay in the Grove, Molly at one point moving from his own bed to Caleb’s, curling around him and stealing his fever to warm himself up. The second twenty four hours, Caleb couldn’t fall asleep but didn’t have the strength to get up, so he was forced to think. 

He was forced to think about Astrid and the way that her face had twisted as she called him a traitor. He thought about the venom in her voice. He thought about the way that her nose broke under his foot. He thought about Astrid’s smile and her laugh, rarer and rarer as time went on but beautiful all the same. He thought about Eodwulf, the look in his eyes when he told Caleb how much like Ikathon he was. He thought about Wulf’s hands trailing down his sides, cupping his jaw, tangling in his hair. He imagined Wulf’s fingers pressing glass into his head. 

He thought about Ikathon. About Trent. He thought about that sly look of approval that crept onto his face when Caleb did something well. He thought about the cutting praise, the small reassurances that, though rare, were coveted, and usually came when one outshined the others. He thought about sapphires and amethysts and rubies and quartz sticking an inch into his arm, silver magic and smoke swirling around him. He thought about sharp slaps, cutting words, kicks to the ribs and magic piercing through his skin. 

He and Molly were facing each other, not sleeping but not awake. Molly’s fingers trailed over Caleb’s face, Caleb’s hands were tangled in Molly’s long, dirty, purple hair. 

“Talk to me, baby,” Molly murmured, barely above a whisper, “if you need to. You can talk to me. You’re safe.” Caleb appreciated the affirmation even though he didn’t need it. He knew that he was safe. He trusted Molly. He trusted Beau and Nott and all of them. He trusted them. 

“I need to,” Caleb could feel an ache in his chest, no longer overpowered by the ache of his magic, “but I don’t know if I can.” Molly hummed and held him closer, sliding one of his legs between Caleb’s and pulling them flush together. 

“It’s okay,” Molly whispered. Caleb could feel his breath blowing against his eyelids. “Start with something small. Start with something easy.” 

“I loved them.” He said. “I loved  _ him.  _ He was so important. He was everything to us, a straight path to God. I loved him. I love him.” 

“Baby,” Molly’s voice was heavy with pain, “love doesn’t leave you traumatized. Love doesn’t leave you with flashbacks or PTSD or any of that. And it's not your fault. Its his. He taught you that. He taught you that love was controlling and manipulative and painful, but its not.” 

“Love is patient,” Caleb recited, “love is kind.” The meaning behind those words was lost somewhere in the growing panic in his chest. He recited them without thinking about them. He repeated them with precision, knowing that if he got them wrong, smoke would leave a burn across his skin. 

“Stay with me, baby, I’m right here.” Molly’s hands were rubbing Caleb’s cheeks raw. 

“It has been twenty years since I’ve seen him.” His grief kept pouring out of his mouth like vomit. He couldn’t stop it. “Ten of that was spent in an institution. I didn’t know where I was or who I was but I knew that I had done something horrible. I tried to kill myself so many times. I didn't want to live with what I had done. Even after I found my mind again, I didn’t want to live knowing that I had defied him. I didn’t want to live without him. I didn't want to live. I don’t want to live.” 

“Baby,” Molly whispered, his voice trapped in his throat, “Caleb,  _ quierdo,  _ slow down. Just breathe for a second.” Molly rested Caleb’s hand against his bare chest and took in a dramatically deep breath. Caleb mimicked it poorly. “You’re doing wonderful.” Molly murmured to him. “You just stay here with me, okay? You stay here with me.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me on tumblr at gayshitiguess.


	14. Epilogue: Hush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boring Again, The Hanged Man, Therapy, Boxing Dummies, and Names.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOLY FUCK I DID IT! Guys, this one was painful. Like it was amazing and I love it but FUCK it took me for fucking ever to write. I’m finishing this right on time, too, since my schedule is getting crazier during the next few weeks. Fear now, I have a few stories planned for the break (an addition to my Star Trek AU, a high school au!!! And even a short piece for Bell Jar!). Also, I’m editing some of the dialogue in earlier chapters to mesh with Caleb’s name reveal. I’m not exactly sure when this break will be over, but I hope you guys enjoy this and whatever comes in the in between!!!

It was a week before Caleb was able to leave the Grove and another 3 days before he and Fjord decided to make the trip to pick up the shop. It was a long drive, but Caduceus made them sandwiches and sent them with a comically large thermos of tea. He slipped a bottle of pills into Caleb’s hand. 

“If anything starts hurting,” he said, “take one. Just one. It’ll help.” He kissed each of their foreheads. Molly was wrapped up in one of Caduceus’ too large shirts, his hair messily tied up and in need of re-dying. 

“You’re sure you’re okay to go?” He asked. Trailing his fingers down the length of Caleb’s arm. 

“ _ Ja,”  _ Caleb said, nodded his head. Molly smiled and retrieved his ridiculous red leather jacket. He hung it around Caleb’s shoulders. 

“It’s cold up there,” he said, “stay hot, hot stuff.” Molly kissed him like it was the last time. Molly kissed him like he was dying. 

Caleb never felt awkward in the silence that often permeated between himself and Fjord. Silence wasn’t always a comfortable thing for him to sit in, but Fjord wasn’t someone who felt the need to fill it. Caleb had no idea what his taste in music was, but he doubted that it was German pop, so they never played anything on the radio during the unusually long car ride. Caleb read inbetween long gazes out of the passenger window, his worn copy of  _ Frankenstein _ in his lap, underlined, highlighted, and dog eared beyond recognition. 

“We’ll find them,” Fjord said eventually, catching his accent half way through the sentence. “Eventually. Or they’ll find us. Either way, we’ll just kick their asses again.” 

“I appreciate everything that you’ve done for me, Fjord.” Caleb said, flipping through the letters again. 

“You’d do the same for me. You  _ have  _ done the same.” Fjord ran his hand through his short hair, kept his eyes on the road ahead of him. The deserts of Southern California had bled into the dense forests of Oregon. They were nearing the end of their journey. “How’re you healing up?” 

“Well,” Caleb said. “Very well.” 

“Your magic?” Fjord asked. 

“Better than it has been in a long time.” And it was true. It still ached after too much use, but it didn’t steal the meat from his bones or suck the air out of his lungs. It wasn’t perfect, it still had it's scars, those deep tissue wounds that throbbed when it rained, but it was better. 

“Well, you went through all kinds of shit, so it's about time that you got something in return.” Fjord tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. “And I think you’re going to be okay.” 

It took them an hour to traipse through the woods back to Modern Literature. Caleb ran his fingers against the bark of the weeping willow. The shop was almost exactly as he had left it. He could see the spot of blood that had dried over the iron where his head had caved in. He could see the cracks in the wall where Wulf’s magic had sent Molly through the drywall. A large stack of books was strewn haphazardly over Beau’s desk. Several of his tomes were torn open, thrown across the room, pages bent and torn. 

“What did you do?” He asked, opening a Japanese text that had been abandoned on the ground next to Beau’s over-filled waste basket. 

“Oh shit,” Fjord rubbed at the back of his neck, “we needed that location spell, couldn’t find it, kind of tore your entire library apart.” Caleb sighed and collected a few of the more precarious volumes before giving up on the task altogether. 

“You all are monstrous.” Caleb smiled. “I am kidnaped for twenty hours and you destroy our home.” 

“At least we had Duecy,” Fjord said, “otherwise, we would have starved.” Caleb smiled. 

All in all, it took them fourteen hours to drive back up, two hours spent in the Evening Nip, stretching out their tired muscles and remembering what meat tasted like, and another preparing for the move. Their last one had left several of their more delicate possessions broken thanks to their haste. Not so this time around. They carefully combed through the shop, securing everything down and making sure that everything glass was safely tucked away. Caleb even braved his way into Molly’s room to make sure that nothing would be broken twice over. Caleb cared for Molly, he really did, but his boyfriend had a messier lifestyle than Caleb did. Caleb’s work area was always cluttered, covered in papers and plates and books, but his living quarters were pristine. He didn’t understand how someone could live like Molly did. Clothes, food, books, vinyl records, all strewn about his room. The only things that Molly treated with care were Caleb and his tarot cards. They were all lined neatly up on his shelf, hundreds of sets, all stacked with care, only one set missing, the one that he kept in his pocket. Caleb’s hand made its way to the pocket of Molly’s jacket, and he pulled out the worn purple set. Caleb was frankly shocked that Molly hadn’t taken them out of his jacket before giving it to Caleb. He was almost never without the things. Sometimes, he would sit down on the floor of his or Caleb’s room and meditate, flipping the cards over and over again. One, two, three, and then back into the deck, not even flipping them over to see what they were. Molly didn’t need to. He could tell you your cards from their backs alone, from the feel of them, from their rough and faded surface against his fingers. Caleb absentmindedly pulled a card. Seven. The Hanged Man. 

He knitted a golden net over the shelf. He carefully secured the picture frames on Molly’s nightstand, the poorly taken photo of Jester and Beau, the snapshot of Molly and Yasha, the embarrassing candid of himself. 

He hung a sigil over the rearview mirror of Fjord’s van. 

“So you don’t have to steal a car next time.” He said. 

“I had no idea that Jester knew how to hotwire cars.” Fjord rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. 

“I was more surprised that Beau or Nott didn’t.” Caleb smiled. “And that you decided to stop in LA to get your van.” Fjord bristled. 

“Well, they were looking for a stolen car, I had to dump it.” He defended. “Besides, this is my baby.” 

It took them seventeen hours to prepare and it took him all of seven minutes to cast the spell. He rubbed his hands together, blew air into them, closed his eyes. 

“Hickory Pickery, Hickory Pickery,” Caleb whispered “where shall this witch go?” The ground beneath him began to shake. The soft earth began to crack, gold leaking through. The weeping willow shivered in the wind. “Hickory Pickery,” he said, the wind whipping his hair around his face. Fjord’s hand met his back, as though to steady him. “Hickory Pickery,” he opened his eyes. 

It was the first time that he had cast the spell with a particular place in mind. In the past, they had always been running away from something, moving as quickly as they could, trying to get far, far away. Now, though, now he knew where home was. He pictured it in his mind, the spot between the payday loan place and the yoga studio/now coffee shop, soon to be something else, he was sure. He held South Spring Street in his mind, saw his shop fitting in that open spot, right where it belonged. 

“Hickory Pickery Po,” he finished the rhyme, blew out a lung full of air, and bent to pound his hands into the earth. Once, twice, his palms dug into the earth, broke over the sticks and pine straw. The air blew up around them, and in the next moment, they were in a different place all together. 

It was evening in LA. The street was illuminated by the flickering, soft orange street light a few feet off. Caleb’s hands were planted onto sidewalk, gold sealing up the cracks. He was tired. He was drained. But his magic didn’t tear away at him. He didn’t feel that hole in his chest. It was warm, even in December, and Molly’s jacket quickly became too hot. He breathed in air and breathed out air and he was whole. 

___

He was curled into Molly’s chest one morning several weeks after Modern Literature had been put back in its place. They had been considerably better weeks than Caleb had had in a long time. He spent most of it with the others. For the first time in his life, he didn’t want to be alone. He craved other people, he craved contact, affection. He leaned into them, sat with Jester as she baked, watched Beau train, drank tea in Yasha’s greenhouse. 

Yasha had sat next to him one day, taking a portion of his hair in her hands, and braiding it carefully. 

“What’s this for?” He asked, trailing his fingers over it. Yasha secured one of the blue beads from her hair over it. 

“You’ve earned it.” She said. “Warrior.” 

Caleb was still a solitary person. He still felt the creeping exhaustion from spending too much time around people, but he needed them. It was less that he needed the contact, and more that he was afraid what he would do if he was alone. He hadn’t expected to say what he had said to Molly. It had just come out of him, but it was true. Caleb didn’t want to surprise himself again, so he stuck close to the others, let them safeguard him. 

The mornings were lazy and long and spent wrapped up in Mollymauk. Molly shifted their weight, laid Caleb out on his back and devoured his neck. 

Caleb had been much too fragile to do anything resembling intimacy, but Molly had been carefully introducing affection. Mollymauk carefully carded his hands through Caleb’s hair. When he spoke, he spoke into the skin of Caleb’s neck, hot breath and sharp teeth. 

“Don’t think that I’ve forgotten about therapy.” Molly mumbled. “You probably need it more than ever.” 

“I’m doing better.” Caleb said, dancing his fingers over Molly’s spine. 

“That doesn’t mean that everything is solved.” Molly said. “I just think it’ll be a good idea. If it feels wrong, you never have to go again, just once,  _ quierdo,  _ please?” Caleb sighed into the purple hair splayed over his face. 

“ _ Ja,”  _ he said, “ _ Ja,  _ okay.” Molly beamed and kissed the anxiety out of his chest. 

___

Caleb had his arms wrapped around Molly’s middle, a helmet on his head, and his eyes screwed shut. He didn’t care for Molly’s bike very much. It was dangerous, but Fjord didn’t like to loan out his van and nobody else could drive. Caleb, for whatever reason, hadn’t told anybody else that he was going to therapy. He was sure that they would all be supportive, but he wanted to keep this for himself. 

Molly parked his bike outside of the conspicuous office and took Caleb’s helmet. He ran his fingers through Caleb’s hair, avoiding his braid, and smiling. 

“So, I’ll be right across the street, and the session is just an hour, but if you get done early or you want to leave, just leave. You’re going to be completely fine.” Molly fretted over Caleb’s sweater. 

“I think you’re more nervous than I am.” Caleb muttered. Molly smiled and cupped his cheek in his hand.

“I want you to be better, baby.” He kissed Caleb’s cheeks, one after the other. “I want you to feel safe and loved and happy.” Caleb felt guilt churning in his stomach. 

“I will try my best.” Caleb said. Molly patted his cheeks. 

“That’s all you have to do.” He whispered into Caleb’s lips. 

Mostly, Caleb had no idea how he was going to explain his issues without outing the entire magical community to his mundane therapist. Molly kissed him again and waved as he crossed the street. Caleb sucked in a large breath and let it out slowly. He turned to the office and approached the door. There was no sign above the door, nothing advertising it as a therapist office. On the big, white door, was a piece of paper that read ‘PLEASE KNOCK BEFORE ENTERING’ and a symbol scratched into the paint. It was a small circle, with what looked like a crescent moon attached to each side. It was the symbol of a witch. Caleb felt minutely better. 

He knocked three times, his knuckles still sore after a few weeks of healing. He rubbed his fingers over the tender flesh as he waited for the door to be opened. 

“Hold on, hold on,” a voice rang through the door. A few seconds later, the door swung open. The first thing that Caleb noticed about the man who opened the door was his hair, a shock of white, a billowing afro with fingers of curling hair pointed in all directions. What took his attention away from the hair was his eyes, wide, white, and, pupiless. On his chin was a smartly trimmed beard, Caleb could imagine that he would look rather menacing if he hadn’t been smiling. He was handsome, striking, with deep, dark skin and dimples. He wore an immaculate cream-colored suit, with a bold orange tie. Caleb felt suddenly very underdressed in his ratty button up and sweater. “You must be Mr. Widogast,” the man said, “I’m Shakäste, come on in.” He ushered Caleb in patiently. As Caleb stepped past the threshold, he saw several orange sigils light up in the door frame. “A magic man, hmm? Not to worry, it's just an alarm. You never know quite what’s walking through your door these days.” Caleb nodded and fiddled with the clay necklace around his neck. 

“Yes, so I’ve heard.” Shakäste smiled and led Caleb to the narrow staircase leading up to the office proper. As they walked, Caleb heard a small buzzing sound flit around his head. He thought that it might have been a very large fly before a hummingbird hovered a foot away from his face, cocking its tiny head as it stared at him with glowing orange eyes. Caleb blinked a few times. 

“That’s Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna. You can call her Duchess. She’s just curious, let her get a look at you, so I can get a look at you.” Shakäste said without turning back to Caleb. It clicked in Caleb’s brain. The magic in the hummingbirds eyes, the way that Shakäste walked. He was seeing through her. Caleb had never considered the possibilities of familiars acting a conduits for certain aspects of the senses. It was a fascinating and ingenious tactic that he wanted desperately to ask questions about, but swallowed them down. 

Shakäste lead Caleb into an office at the top of the stairs. It was nice, with large windows and a lot of natural light. There were a series of comfortable looking chairs and a coffee table. Caleb sat where Shakäste indicated, folding his hands in his lap, and waited patiently for their session to begin. 

“Do you want anything? Coffee, tea?” Shakäste made his way to the small drink station by the large desk in the corner. He set about making one cup of coffee. Caleb shook his head, but realized that the Duchess wasn’t looking at him. 

“No, no, I don’t want to be a bother.” He muttered, scratching at his arms. Shakäste laughed lightly. 

“It’s no trouble. You’re a tea man, aren’t you?” He retrieved another mug. “Earl Grey or green?” He asked. Caleb felt a tug at his chest. 

“Green.” He whispered. 

“Do you have one too?” Shakäste said as he carried the two cups over. Caleb screwed up his brow. “A familiar.” He specified. Caleb snapped and Frumpkin appeared in his lap. The cat purred at him, and then saw the Duchess. The fur on Frumpkin’s back stood up as he hissed. Caleb patted down the hair and whispered for him to calm down. Shakäste laughed and sat across from Caleb, the Duchess settling in his hair. “Territorial things, aren’t they?” He said fondly. “How did you decide on a cat?” Caleb pet Frumpkin as he eyed the hummingbird, climbing up onto Caleb’s shoulders to settle over his neck. 

“I had a cat when I was younger. She looked different, different patterns, but she was a good cat. Frumpkin. And this Frumpkin, he’s just as good.” Caleb said, scratching at the spot between Frumpkin’s eyes softly. 

“He’s a comfort to you?” Shakäste asked. 

“Yes. And very useful. He’s very intelligent.” Frumpkin rubbed his face against Caleb’s neck, licked his cheek. 

“So you had a cat when you were younger. Where did you grow up?” Shakäste sipped at his coffee. Caleb could feel the conversation moving from something casual to actual therapy. He felt as though he were being observed, as though he were some bacteria in a petri dish. Shakäste waited patiently for him to speak. Caleb could feel the Duchess’ eyes on him. 

“Germany,” Caleb didn’t elaborate further. Shakäste nodded and looked as though he wanted Caleb to go on. 

And as much as Caleb wanted this to work, as much as he wanted to get better for Molly and for himself, he really couldn’t find the words. How was he supposed to tell someone what he had done? He could barely get through it when he told his friends, and he hadn’t even told them that he had killed his fucking parents. How was he supposed to look at a stranger, a stranger who was most likely much more powerful than him, and tell him exactly how he had scarred the world? 

“We can start with something else,” Shakäste offered, “you don’t have to start with the hardest parts.” Caleb flipped it over in his head. “Why don’t we start with why you decided to come?” 

“My...” Frumpkin pawed at his shoulder, giving him something to focus on, “my boyfriend made me.” As soon as he said it, he realized how rude it was. He went red from his ears to his chest and started stammering, trying to find a way to correct his social misgivings. Shakäste beat him to it, raising his hand and laughing softly. 

“If only we all had a stubborn boyfriend to make us do good things.” He said, straightening his tie. Caleb laughed awkwardly with him for a moment. He could feel his heart beating under his skin. “But what I meant was why  _ you  _ came. If you really didn’t want to, you wouldn’t have. People are funny like that, I find.” Caleb shifted uncomfortably in his chair. 

“I want...” Caleb scratched at his arms, raking his fingernails over the fine white scars. “I want to be better. For him.” 

“Interesting,” Shakäste said, tapping his finger against his coffee cup. He was the picture of calm, a pillar of peace. Caleb could feel the panic building up inside of him. “Why him?” 

“Mollymauk is special,” Caleb said, “he’s wonderful. Smart, capable. He’s gone through terrible things but now he’s fine! He has had the hardest lot in life and he is so happy. And I can’t be that.” 

“First,” Shakäste said, “you don’t have to be that. Not everybody is meant to be perfectly happy. Second, I think you might be simplifying him. Surely he isn’t always alright. There have to be times that he isn’t his best self and seeks help for it.” 

“Not from me.” Caleb said. He hadn’t realized that until the words were out of his mouth. Molly seemed so independent, surely he didn’t need anybody to help him. Certainly not Caleb. Who in their right mind would seek out Caleb for help? “Nor should he. I am... I am a disgusting person. He deserves better than what I can give him right now. And if I weren’t so selfish, I would tell him to find it somewhere else, but I am and I want the attention that he has given me so now I need to be better so that he doesn’t leave, so they don’t all leave-“ 

“Caleb,” Shakäste interrupted, “hush. Take a second.” Caleb closed his eyes and focused on the feeling of Frumpkin’s purs, radiating through his neck. “Just breathe and tell me when you’re ready.” Caleb screwed his hands up into fists and fought the fire from leaking out.

“I’m sorry,” He muttered, rubbing a hand over his face. 

“Hush.” Shakäste said again. “None of that. You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.” Caleb wasn’t going to cry during his first therapy session. He wasn’t going to make himself look weak. Eventually, he opened his eyes, breathed normally. He chanced a look up at Shakäste and found patient, translucent eyes looking back at him. “You okay? Do you need a break?” Caleb shook his head and traced his scars with his fingers. “Let’s start with small things and then build. We can skirt around issues for right now. All you have to do is give me some background. Is that alright?” Caleb nodded. He reached for his tea, cupping it near his chest, leaching the warmth. 

He breathed, thought about Molly, and told Shakäste his mother’s name. 

Molly was waiting for him in the coffee shop across the street. He had a box of pastries, most likely for Jester and he was flirting with the barista that had brought him some sugary, bastardized version of coffee to his table. As soon as he saw Caleb, the barista was forgotten. He stood from his seat and wrapped Caleb up in a hug. 

“Are you alright?” He asked, his breath hot on Caleb’s ear. 

“Yes,” Caleb said on instinct. He didn’t need to tell him how bare or vulnerable he felt. He didn’t need to tell him how skinned to the bone he was. 

“Okay. Home?” Molly said, retrieving his pastries and sliding a five dollar bill under the napkin dispenser. 

“You don’t want me to tell you what happened?” Caleb asked. Molly smiled, sliding his hand into the back pocket of Caleb’s jeans as they walked. 

“Not if you don’t want to tell me.” Molly said. “That’s for you. you don’t have to bring me a report card after every session, but you can share however much or little you want.” 

“I like him,” Caleb said. 

“I like  _ you,”  _ Molly teased, stealing a kiss from Caleb’s cheek. 

“I like you more.” Caleb poked Molly’s ribs. 

“Darling,” Molly said, “do we really want to do this again?” 

___

Beau set up several dummies around her gym, all baring targets on their chests and loosely defined facial features. 

“So just hit them I guess.” She said, sitting back against the boxing ring. Caleb smiled and conjured flames in his hands. One, two, three, he threw the fire at each and sent them tumbling to the ground. Beau whistled and nodded, walking over to one of the dummies to kick at its charred remains. “Good shit, man. No weird stuff?” Caleb shook his head and swirled smoke between his fingers. “Okay, so set one, no symptoms.” Beau pulled out her phone and typed into her notes. Caleb had frankly been surprised at Beau’s research prowess when they had first started working together, but after a few years, he stopped assuming things about Beauregard. “Again?” Beau asked. Caleb nodded again as she set the dummies back up. 

It was set thirty seven when he started to feel it. Caleb was sure that throwing one hundred and eleven fireballs would tucker out any mage, but it burned. He could feel the pain blossom in his chest. He could tell that it was coming, so he wasn’t surprised when he threw his last shot wide as his knees buckled. Beau rushed forward, taking his arm in hand and softening his fall. 

“You good?” She asked, patting him down and checking his still-healing injuries. 

“Fine,” Caleb assured her through gritted teeth. She scoffed and lead him to sit on the ground of her gym. She sat across from him and pulled out her phone. 

“Okay, symptoms?” She asked. 

“Dizziness, pain in the chest and hands, weakness of muscles,” he stopped to catch his breath. 

“Take your time,” Beau said. It was very rare that she was gentle with people, and her affection wasn’t like the kind that Molly or Jester handed out freely. Her affection was in few words, in a shoulder that he could grab onto, in her back against his when they were cornered and bloody. She sat back, observed the charred remains of her boxing dummies. “You’re going to have to replace those.” Caleb waved his hands before he could think better of it and returned the dummies to their original state. He clutched at his chest and doubled over, the air knocked out of his lungs. 

“Oof-“ Beau said, patting his back. “That’s rough, buddy.” Caleb groaned, focused on tucking his magic away in his chest and locking out the pain. “But it's better than it has been,” Beau said, “I mean, that was a lot of fucking fire.” Caleb sat back, rubbed his hands over his face. 

“It’s still not enough.” Caleb said. “What am I supposed to do in long term fights?” Beau shrugged. 

“We’ve got your back.” She said. 

___

It took him two months to open the shop again. It was March and the chill in his bones was beginning to leak away. He knew that most days, nobody stumbled into his shop, but he hadn’t felt ready to allow people back into his space, no matter how few. He’d spent time talking to Shakäste about it. 

“It’s like a bandaid.” Shakäste had said. “You’ve either got to rip it off or take your time. You get to decide which sounds better.” Caleb had decided to take his time. He started with a few shifts a day, only opening for a few odd hours, and Molly and Fjord had graciously taken up the front desk. It was March, the cold was leaving his bones, and he manned the front desk for the first time since Trent Ikathon had walked into the shop. 

He was reading a book that Molly had requested of him, flipping through it and not quite understanding the sense of humor. He always had a hard time grasping English jokes. 

The door to the back opened and Molly stepped out, setting a mug of tea on the counter. 

“It’s not Caddy’s, but I think it’ll do.” Molly said, kissing his cheek as he settled against the counter. Caleb marked his book and took the tea gratefully. “How’s it going?” 

“Good,” Caleb said, sipping at his tea, “no one has been in yet.” Molly nodded and raked his eyes over Caleb. 

“How do you feel today?” He asked casually, his hand slipping into his pocket to finger through his tarot cards.

Caleb had been trying his very best not to lie about how he felt. He had been trying to be honest, to admit when he felt worse for ware, and to seek out the help that he needed. But that day, he just didn’t know if it was in him to try. He didn’t know if he could convince himself to work. He felt the tug of emotional laziness, the hazy attractiveness of just letting his feelings slip away. And then he realized that he’d left too long of a gap. 

“Caleb,” Molly started, trailing his hand down Caleb’s arm. A tentative touch, asking permission to touch more. 

“Bren.” Caleb corrected. He hadn’t said that name in so long. “Caleb is my name but my name is Bren.” He rushed out. He didn’t know why he’d said that. 

“I’m sorry, love, I don’t follow.” Molly smiled. 

“I chose the name Caleb,” he explained, “when I met Nott. It was just something that I said when I didn’t expect her to be around for long. It was just the next in a line of fake ones. And I like Caleb, I’ve done good as Caleb...” Molly’s hands rubbed at his arm, gave him something to focus on. “But Bren was the name that my parents gave me. Bren Aldric Ermendrud.” The syllables rolled off his tongue, the familiar tones so long abandoned. Like dusting off a childhood toy. 

“Do you prefer that?” Molly asked. Caleb considered it for a moment, turned the idea over of his name, his given name on Mollymauk’s clever tongue. 

“Yes,” he said. 

“Bren, my darling,” Molly cupped his cheeks in his hands, “breathe. I’ve got you. Its okay to lean for a second.” Caleb smiled, nodded, let Molly take him up in his arms. 

“Bren, Bren, Bren,” Molly whispered in his ear. “Bren, Bren, Bren, Bren, Bren, Bren.” Caleb laughed into the skin of Molly’s neck, kissed the peacock feathers there. 

“Molly, Molly, Molly,” He whispered back. 

They swayed back and forth, Caleb leaning half of his weight into Molly’s chest. Somewhere between dancing and finding their feet, they hummed, whispered names that they barely knew. 

“That’s just for you,” he said. “I don’t know how I feel about it yet, but you make it sound nice.” 

“I understand,” Molly whispered. 

“ _ Ich liebe dich,”  _ Caleb blurted it out before he could think better of it. Molly hummed in his ear. 

“What does that mean?” He asked. Caleb could feel his heart beating in his chest. 

“I love you,” he said. “I love you, Molly.” Molly blew out a breath and sucked in another in quick succession. Caleb could feel his smile against his skin. 

“Oh my God,” Molly said, “do you have a crush on me?” Caleb could feel a blush rising to his cheeks. 

“We have been dating for a year.” He said, pressing his forehead into Molly’s chest. 

“You totally have a crush on me.” Molly said. “And it's a good thing too, because I love you too. So much. Like, it's embarrassing.” Caleb laughed, his chest free and airy. 

“I love you, Mollymauk,” he said. Trailing his fingers over the scar on his neck. 

“I’ve got you,” Molly said. “I’ve got you, Bren.” 

“I feel bad,” he said, swaying, lolling his head on Molly’s shoulder. “I feel rubbed raw.” Mollymauk hummed. “I feel as though I’ve had every horrible thing in the world done to me and by me. And I’m afraid that there is still more.” 

“Oh,  _ quierdo,”  _ Molly whispered. 

“But I’m still going to be here. Even if worse happens, I am still going to be here.” Molly’s lips met his temple. “You stay here with me, okay?” He could feel the soft laugh pass through their skin, more air than sound. 

“Always.” 

The front door opened and they broke apart, hands still lingering, faces red and chests aching. Caleb didn’t let go of Molly’s fingers, didn’t let him leave. Fjord emerged from the book shelves and smiled at the two of them. A shiver ran up Caleb’s spine for some reason, something off about his eyes. 

“I think I have a job for the Nein,” Fjord said. Molly stood up straighter, and squeezed Caleb’s hand in his. Caleb felt some of the unease drain away. They hadn’t chased a proper ghost since before Ikathon. This was his work. This was his trade, and no matter how uneasy he felt, he could do this. 

“Well then,” Caleb said, looking between Molly and Fjord, “let’s get to work,  _ ja?”  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready for these fuckers to be the dummest bitches on the face of the planet.


End file.
